March 25, 2008
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Aha Moment
After all the ho-hum comments about public pajama wearing persons yesterday, I've decided to deliberately and with intent wear my pajamas all day long. I thought about it this morning after my shower, the pajamas lay there on the bathroom counter, neatly folded, and it seemed very strange to consider wearing them in the day light. I wavered. I thought about it.
My pajamas are on my body. I made sure to use my apron this morning when I cooked breakfast so I wouldn't accidentally spill anything and force myself to abaondon my experimental "Day of Living Comfortably". I've made it six hours into my day, wearing the pink/yellow plaid bottoms and the loose yellow top. I love my pajamas. I love the length, the trim, the light cotton comfort. I feel daring to still have my pajamas on, on purpose, at 11:30 in the morning.
I have not yet been brave enough to wear them outside. I'm sure that's a necessary component of actually wearing pajamas on purpose. It can hardly count if I'm holed up in my house where no one can see or think I'm odd. Maybe I'm not odd. Maybe I'm just enjoying the pretense of being odd.
*****
We all tell stories.
We all tell stories in which we are the hero. In my positive stories I'm a quirky hero.
In the Eckhart Tolle book I've been reading along with a million other people around the world, he's written about the danger of the stories we tell ourselves. Philosophically, it's easy to understand. No story is ever really "true". Even if a story contains nothing but 100% independently verifiable statements (which no story ever does) the first thing that every writer learns is that stories are shaped as much by the information omitted as what's included.
I've been thinking about the stories I tell myself about myself. To some degree or another none of them are true. It's easier to hear when other people tell untrue stories, you know? I'll hear someone telling about how they are unusual for this reason or that reason, how they are a victim of this event/person or a savior in that situation and with their word choices or tone of voice I know they are exaggerating or have deceived themselves.
That made me wonder about the stories I tell that aren't true. I was telling a story about myself the other day in which I said, "I would have done the laundry except I was being lazy." My listening friend laughed out loud at that and challenged me directly.
"The fact that you didn't get the laudry done is not because you're lazy, it's because you were doing these other 12 things that day."
Cool Mary regularly catches me indulging in negative self-talk, describing myself in ways that are not only unflattering, but untrue. In the Tolle book over the past week and then in the online class last night I heard that these negative and untrue stories are a product of egoic structures. Eckhart said that the ego loves a strong sense of identity and nothing is stronger than a negative condemning identity.
Ahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Through this study I've heard other people describe their "Aha" moments and I couldn't relate. Either it seemed so obvious or so esoteric that their realizations had no meaning for me. My Aha moment might not mean anything to anyone but me, and that's okay.
*****
Bill asked me last week whether I've been practicing my meditations. Uhm, no, not really, no.
Tolle has a lot to say about the importance of stillness. I wouldn't say that I've resisted that teaching, at least not intellectually. But I've heard it with a kind of, yeah, okay, right, BUT...
Henry Blackaby in Experiencing God said, "don't just do something, stand there."
The Bible says, "Be still and know that I am God."
I say, "I'll have time to be still when I'm older, or dead. But in the meantime all that not doing makes me nervous. So if you'll excuse me I'll be over here washing dishes, or sweeping the patio, or vacuuming - oh and there's always laundry, and shopping, and cooking, and ..."
Tolle said that "one breath in and out can be a meditation". You know what? I can breathe. Without much effort, without having to remind myself I breathe pretty much all day long. If I can breathe, I can access little moments of stillness. It may not be a mind-altering meditation with the formation of new neural pathways, but I'm willing to try the stillness of a breath.
*****
Chapter 5 is called "The Pain Body" - that doesn't sound like much fun. But I wonder what I'll learn ...
Comments (19)
I have seen people wear their pajamas to the library where I work. I have a friend who wears pajama bottoms to any movie that starts after 8 p.m. (But she usually wears a shirt, not the pj top).
Well, I may have to read this book even though I normally avoid the thing that a million other people are reading.
I learned about the "untrue stories" some years ago when reading about a person's experience in a laundromat - only he called them "movies in our heads".
Listening to our stories or watching our movies can help us be the "impersonal observer" who watches impartially and doesn't judge.
Yay for the pajama experiment! This is going to be a campaign of mine I think: to get everybody to wear their pajamas all day at least one day a week. Maybe if we didn't wear such uncomfortable clothes all the time the movies in our heads would be more positive. That's a stretch, but hey, anything's possible.
One of my moving meditations is "God is as close as my next breath." It pulls me back into mindfulness. My other moving meditation is the painting. I have to be still inside to paint, have to stop all the chattering and fidgeting - and experience a profound joy and peace and delight when I do. Surprised the heck out of me, but there it is.
I believe we can find our deepest stillness and connectedness when we're creating.
Strange how people parallel each other here sometimes.
Girl I have some different print that I never wear with a matching top if you want them send me you address and I will send them too you,.....
Huh....I always thought of ego as thinking too highly of oneself......not thinking or speaking negatively of oneself. I must be WAY off base somewhere.
I doubt I will ever go outside the house in pj's. Nope. Can't see that happening....especially since none of my pj's HAVE bottoms.
Congrats on the a-ha moment!
@DawnsEarlyLight - Dawn, it is certainly true that a superior attitude is an "ego" problem. The message of this chapter was that "ego" is sometimes more subtle than we credit. C S Lewis speaks of something similar in his Screwtape Letters.
Screwtape the Demon says, "The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. ... {God} wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. {God} wants him in the end, to be so free from bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents - or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants to kill their self-love as soon as possible, but it is His long term policy to give them a new kind of self-love, a charity and gratitude for all selves including their own..."
Tolle and Lewis both show that although the ego believes that self-esteem and humility are contradictory terms, they are in fact one and the same in that humility is seeing things as they are and valuing them as they are. What has become clear to me is that telling negative stories about myself, and indulging a false humility enables me to avoid doing the real work of overcoming my ego.
Sounds like quite a book! Every time I try to have a pajama day, you can be sure someone will stop by unexepctedly!+
@quiltnmomi - Ahaaaaaaaaaaaa.
Ah moments are so important in life. Judi
I like wearing my jammies outside, lol. When I wear them to work I wear them all day. It's a bit freeing I think, I can't explain it but it is.
oh why wear pajamas all day long? there are so many options for comfortable clothing..i enjoy the ritual of putting them on as part of closing the day and retiring for the evening.
i like you cannot sit still enough to meditate. instead i practice as much of what i call attentive mindfulness. i appreciate everything i do and watch my mind while i'm doing it. when i wash dishes, i wash dishes. when i make a steak on the grill i make a steak on the grill. its all to easy to fall into the illusion of multitasking as a modern necessity. i prefer single tasking and making sure that i appreciate what i'm doing, why i'm doing it, why it's important and take good strong breaths when i'm doing it.
C'mon, those PJs look perfectly presentable to check the mail in! Go for it! *smirk*
I could never wear pajamas all day...not so much because I'd be embarrassed if caught, but that it would remind me of being sick...or make me feel too unproductive. Perhaps wearing pajamas in the middle of the afternoon will help induce one of those "be still" moments.
pajama wearers of the world UNITE!
enjoy!
I agree about "the importance of stillness" but equally, if not even more relevant in today's society, is the importance of silliness.
You might like a true story i told... (it took three posts to write it out... If you stop by and go back to January 1st 2007 you can read it.
it was a good chapter...i agree.
i SO wouldn't be caught dead in my jammies outside! being that i only wear a t-shirt! i've seen a lot of teenagers...mostly girls wearing them to school. i don't know...maybe it's better than those 1.2 shirts...hey, whatever floats your boat.
we do all tell stories and the reason we tell them to ourselves is an interesting self-journey... but something i've discovered is that breathing isn't as natural as we're taught. often we forget to breathe. or at least i do. so tell yourself to breathe and let all that pent up air inside you out... and wear those cute pjs to the store if you like!
Get comfortable wearing them in the house first and then venture outside! One step at a time! Go for it girl!
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