Erin, there’s something quite subtle happening in your observations. You’re distinguishing between the feeling of being lost and an actual loss of experience. And you’re noticing that the feeling of self-righteousness can be strong without there being a separate person inside who needs defending.
I want to slow down in a couple of places.
Maybe direct experience is something that is me and awareness is the ability to observe it?
Look carefully at that distinction. There are:
* Sounds, sensations, thoughts, emotions.
* The knowing or noticing of them.
* The thought that there is an observer watching them.
Can you actually find awareness as something separate from the experience being noticed?
When you hear a sound, can you find two separate things: the sound and the awareness of the sound?
Next, around the feeling of needing to be right all this anger comes up but no separate entity can be found. Next time this happens, don’t immediately take a breath to calm yourself. First, notice the urge to defend.
What exactly feels threatened? Look for the threatened
person, not just the feeling of being threatened.
Can you find anything beyond sensations, emotions and thoughts?
but how I respond is the important thing. I may not be able to control my emotions, but I can control how I respond even if I feel upset or angry.
You said you can control how you respond, even if you cannot control your emotions.
That’s a useful practical intention. You can pause, breathe, consider consequences and a response is seemingly selected. Small children, for example, don’t yet have this ability, it is developed over time.
Yet when you take that breath before responding, can you find a separate controller deliberately creating the pause? Or does the pause happen, followed by the recognition that a pause has happened?
