Day 22 - Wanting Pizza and Big Mind

I want pizza.

I want tequila.

I want a Manhattan.

I want a burger.

Tortilla chips.

I want granola.

I want crackers.

I want Bullet Proof coffee. Two of them.

Today, when I went for acupuncture to address my right eye that tires more easily than my left eye, the acupuncturist placed a needle by my temple in the large intestine meridian. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the belief is that the health of the large intestine affects the eyes. 

I refuse to be brought down by cravings. Just because I want something, part of my brain thinks that wanting means I’m supposed to have it. Part of my brain thinks life is supposed to be easy and I’m supposed to have everything handed to me on a silver platter.

What am I, 3? My stomach, for the first time in a long, long time, doesn’t hurt. I don’t even notice it because it’s humming along, doing its thing. This means I’m humming along, doing my thing because my guts aren’t telling my brain that something is wrong, and my brain doesn’t have to dump a bunch of stress hormones into my system in response. I get to just toddle around and do what I want, focus on what I want, cheerfully. 

I am so sick of cravings. Of wanting things just because I see them plastered in ads or hear them sung about on the radio or am so used to having them in my life I think they must be good.

This is what I want: Time. Freedom. Love. Connection. Creativity. Adventure. 

Not a pizza.

Do you hear me, Small Mind? I’m talking to you. Knock it off. There’s a new boss in town, and it ain’t you. 

It’s Big Mind.

Do you know about Big Mind? I learned about it from the yoga teacher Erich Schiffman during a workshop I took with him once.

“Yoga is not a PE class. You’re teaching students how to start feeling free, spontaneous, and intuitive,” says Schiffmann, who draws from the teachings of his past mentors, while putting energy and self-guidance above all. “It’s not about doing an asana the way a teacher wants you to—it’s about trusting yourself enough to do that which feels most right to you.”

It may not be a conventional way to teach yoga, but, as Schiffmann points out, the path to yoga doesn’t conform to convention. He wants students to realize it entails truth, joy, consciousness, union, and awareness. And his lectures steer the way.

“I talk about yoga as getting ‘online,’” says Schiffmann, “using your mind to get wirelessly connected. When you do this, you will experience the fact that Big Mind is your mind, the Supreme Consciousness is your consciousness.” (https://yogainternational.com/article/view/erich-schiffmann-a-larger-than-life-teacher)

The part of my mind that wants the pizza is not me tapping into Supreme Consciousness and working from a place of greater understanding and wisdom. It's not the part that understands the connection between my guts to my eyes. The part of my mind that wants the pizza is Small Mind, it’s the me me me mind, the mind that thinks there’s not enough to go around, the part that worries, that doesn’t see we’re part of a whole and that everything will be okay.

One way to practice Big Mind is to invite it to make small decisions. Does it want an apple or an orange? Does it want to wear the black shirt or the blue shirt.

It’s a strange feeling, trying to discern what part of your mind is choosing for you, but you start to get the hang of it because your body/mind wants you to hear Big Mind; body/mind tries to get you to listen by sending pain signals when you don’t. Your stomach hurts. Your head aches. Your whole self feels slightly off.

Big Mind has your best interest at heart in conjunction with the best interest of the universe. It understands the two can't be separated. This means you are boundless.  

When I go walking and come to a split in the path, I ask Big Mind where it wants to go. This means I pay close attention to my body/mind and I really listen. How do I know if I got it right? I don’t, really. It’s just a practice. But I like it. I like trying to listen to figure out what Big Mind wants me to do. It feels respectful to both my personal self and to the universe as a whole. I’m tapping into a power bigger than I am.

That’s got to be good.              

See you tomorrow.

xoxo