Just stop, Take a pause. Wait a moment.
Do it!
Amazing things can happen when you simply stop. Have you tried it?
It reminds me of the comedy bit by Bob Newhart, where he is a psychologist and this is his advice to his patient.
Here he is yelling “Stop it!” He’s talking about stopping a thought pattern, an emotion, a behavior. The patient thinks it is not so simple.
What makes this so funny?
The patient is in the psychologist’s office obviously because she could not stop thinking about this fear, making her life horrible, as she described it. She is hurting. She could not solve this on her own.
And he is telling her a solution that on the surface seems simple, but doing it is not simple, so it hurts. The situation hurts so deeply to the core – like anyone who has a problem that is tormenting them – and then the solution is just as hurtful because if she could do it, she already would have done it. And not be sitting in his office.
When something hurts that much, all you can do is laugh to make it stop hurting. That’s what the audience does. The patient is not laughing yet.
Have you ever simply tried to stop a behavior? Most of us find it is not simple or funny.
Let’s see if we can laugh at our own situations when we shift from hurting to relief.
Maybe we’re using the wrong approach
What if you did just stop?
Take a pause. Give it a moment. Count to 10. Cease and desist that line of thinking.
You don’t have to commit to stopping the behavior right now, simply stop the thought process.
I find that the mind is startled when commanded to stop. In that moment, the loop stops looping. Possibilities open up.
Too often, objections pop up now to fill that gap. “I can’t stop. It is too intense. It is too overwhelming. It is too much.” Another story. And the loop starts again.
But if you stop, or stop again, and again and again, you can buy a moment to shift perspective. You can get some breathing room to see a few different possibilities.
It’s not about the behavior.
The possibilities that open up are about what your mind is doing and who it is telling you are. Because there is always a story behind a behavior.
Watch the mind
In that moment of stopping, there is an opportunity to watch what is going on in the mind.
Being observant, you may see the story you are telling yourself that perpetuates the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. When you get practiced at watching the mind, you can catch it sooner and sooner in the story, even as it starts to spin the story.
As you see the story behind all this, you may recognize that it is there to show you who you are, to flesh out your identity.
Your identity is someone who has this problem, the fear of being buried in a box, someone who can’t stop thinking about it, someone who can’t go through tunnels because it reminds them of being buried in a box.
This is a real clue to being able to stop it. You have mistaken what you want to stop.
You think you need to stop the behavior. And you can’t. Time and time again the behavior continues. It appears you cannot stop it.
That is because you identify as the one who has the fear, run-on thinking and claustrophobia. And it is so – as long as you have that identity. Someone with fear, a racing mind, avoiding tunnels cannot stop the behavior. It is what one does.
The Aha
If someone with fear, a racing mind, avoidance of anything resembling a box is behaving a certain way, then instead of trying to change the behavior, what about changing the identity?
In watching the mind, you saw that the identity came from spinning a story in your mind about who you are.
What if you changed the story? Then your identity would change.
What if you stopped the story?
Full stop.
Do it and watch the mind. What happens?
Is there any fear? Is there any avoidance?
If they pop up again, notice what story has started in the mind.
Now, watch some more, over time. Who do you become when the stories in the mind stop?
Who do you become without the story?
Without the story of fear, stuck thinking and avoidance, what happens to the behavior?
Do you find it unnecessary to behave that way? Hmm . . .
Do you find that who you are has no need to engage in that behavior? It would make no sense.
But then who are you?
Don’t you need some story about who you are? A hero, a fabricated identity of the best version of you?
You may find even that story is unbelievable or limiting.
Stopping
When you stopped for that moment, the story dropped. Who are you in that moment?
What happens when you simply “stop it!” Not necessarily as a command from the mind, but as dropping the story?
What is left when the story is gone?
Do you find it is nobody who needs to engage in that behavior that you find impossible to stop? That identity is no longer here?
Ha! Isn’t that simple?
Who is that nobody? Can your real identity be revealed?
There is no need to make up a new identity. Your authentic identity is what is left.
Can you now laugh at the story? The story that told you who you were that was so hurtful and limiting? The story laced with fear. incessant thinking, and unwanted behavior?
Still laughing, who are you without the story?
Has the horrible life gone away? Have the pain, suffering, and limiting behaviors all gone away?
Is it freeing, unlimited, joyful?
And all this happens when you Stop it!
That has me laughing.
