A Tool I Use For Doubt

I don’t feel my exploration on death denial is complete in any way - hahaha how could it be?! But I realized it’s March now and my idea, (as explained on the top of my blog), which I am following through on just for fun, is to spend March through May writing about Doubt.

Doubt has been such a feature of my life, my personality, my experience for as long as I remember. What about you?!

I have developed a tool I use in relating to doubt, which I often share in astrology readings. I wholeheartedly commit to something, because commitment has such immense energetic power in it, but only for a certain period of time.

I tell my beloved doubt, I will listen to you again on this date, at this time. But for now, you have to wait.

An example of this is something I am doing with my hip journey. I just went to the physical therapist and received some exercises to do for my hips. There is plenty of doubt present about whether these will “work.” Turns out know one knows for sure. I asked my physical therapist what would further hurt my “severe labrum tear” and she said there are a couple of things maybe, but mostly we just use your pain as a guide for what you should do.

We are trying things, we are making it up, no one knows!

What feels true to me right now is that my attention is what my hips need. For months I haven’t had much pain at all, which feels like a miracle. Of course I don’t know why exactly. No one does! But my sense is that “your body loves your attention” as Eckhart Tolle says.

So my tool is to decide I am all the way committed to these exercises every single day at least until I meet with my physical therapist again. I will do every single thing she suggests. And I will do it without obsessing about the outcome, knowing I cannot control it. If doubt needs to have a stage, we can attend to that during or after the next meeting.

Something about giving it a date and a time, with sincerely, lets doubt rest for long enough for me to actually do a thing.

I’ve noticed that my experience of doing the physical therapy exercises is wildly different than when I’ve tried in the past. I find it to be pleasurable instead of laborious. I get to breathe, I get to slow down and pay attention to my hips and all of my body, actually. I don’t see it as a means to an end anymore, even though that possibility is wonderful. I see it as a way of enacting the truth that my body is not in the way of my life, but the way I get to experience life.

There’s a voice that comes up a lot when I’m writing about my hips to you. It’s the voice that says, this is not that important. Who cares about you and your hip pain?! And the fascinating thing is that voice is the same voice that says, physical therapy exercises are a means to an end. Eating food is a means to an end. It’s the rushing voice that takes itself very seriously and is way too important for this particular body, this particular life.

It’s the voice that needs to override my body so that I can finally “do something important” and/or helpful for other people. It’s the voice of my ego, which ironically has a lot to do with why my hips are in this state, I think. Every time I have overridden my body for something “more important” has contributed to my hips arriving in their current state. I’m not blaming myself or saying it is even wrong — seems kind of built into how we think about life in this place and time. I’m just noticing that the energy that would have me hurry up and get onto something important is the same energy that produces the problem in the first place.

As small or tedious as my hip situation might appear to me, it is a simple circumstance through which to describe what I am learning about, which is how to actually live principles that are meaningful to me. Nothing neglected, nothing excluded. The more deeply I learn how to practice this with my own mind and body, the more I am able to practice it with every and any circumstance. I will get into those other circumstances as I continue on this doubt exploration, because this “more important things” voice is the voice of doubt itself! Lots of good chaotic mind habits to explore.

One more beautiful thing from Eckhart Tolle I can’t get over: you can either act, or accept. Those are the options in any given moment. How simple, how true! I can act toward my hips being in a different state, or accept where they are. This is true of every single life thing, and I will explore it more as an antidote to my doubt as we go.

May this be of use to you, I’m so grateful to be here on planet earth with you.