Noticing my patterns of story-telling over the past few days, I was struck both by the pervasiveness of these narratives, and, at times, their compelling force.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, like bubbles, when “touched” they also seem to pop in mid-air:\u00c2\u00a0 nothing much at all.
\nWe do not often “touch” our thoughts and stories in this way, however, and then they seem to impel us with the force of a strong river current.\u00c2\u00a0 (I say “seem,” acknowledging that I’m telling another story here!)\u00c2\u00a0 But this is what I found more than once this week:\u00c2\u00a0 myself in action, carried on the force of a narrative, and only afterwards becoming aware of the way in which my body, speech, and mind had all been swept up in its currents.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes the compelling story was innocuous, as when I found myself laughing out loud as I walked down the street, caught up in a memory of a funny incident at work.\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes it was more like an automatic reflex or preprogram, as when I heard a whirring noise behind me and I stepped quickly out of the way, expecting a car behind me and then seeing it was a bicycle.\u00c2\u00a0 The action took place without conscious deliberation, but looking back I could see the immediate chain of associations, a narrative string of images, that was “implicated” in the reflex.\u00c2\u00a0 Functionally embodied story.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
But at other times, the narrative and its consequences were neither innocent nor helpful, as when I found myself reflexively dismissing my son after a small incident.\u00c2\u00a0 I had called him over to look at something, and when he came, he ended up knocking some important papers on the floor and scattering them.\u00c2\u00a0 At first, I ignored that, trying several times to direct his attention to something fleeting I wanted him to see before it was gone, but he was focused on the papers and wouldn’t look.\u00c2\u00a0 Suddenly, irrationally, I found myself telling him just to forget the papers and to go away.\u00c2\u00a0 He went away, a bit hurt and confused, and I immediately looked at what had led to my sudden reaction.\u00c2\u00a0 The “story” present here was a primal one:\u00c2\u00a0 the hurt of being ignored, of not being listened to.\u00c2\u00a0 But the story was also a deeply buried one, and it showed up in me more as a bodily state than a verbal train of thought.\u00c2\u00a0 Deeply entrenched, it acted through me unconsciously – another embodied story: “People ignore me and do not value me.”<\/p>\n
When I attempt to re-live the incident, I see how shrunken my awareness was at that moment.\u00c2\u00a0 It seems like it was restricted to a small space immediately around my body; I actually was not seeing my son as I spoke to him, but only my pointing finger.\u00c2\u00a0 Time pressed on me with an unyielding urgency:\u00c2\u00a0 there was only one option open, to push away.\u00c2\u00a0 I am reminded of Tarthang Tulku’s description, in Knowledge of Time and Space<\/em>, of the intensification of time and the indensification of space: here, this primal story enacted a restricted time and space that allowed for no alternatives.\u00c2\u00a0 I replayed a charged, hurtful childhood experience, and created a new one for my son.\u00c2\u00a0 (I have spoken to him since then and apologized for sending him away so abruptly.)<\/p>\n Beyond these three incidents, I noticed (and reflected on) the interplay of stories on a number of different levels throughout the week.\u00c2\u00a0 Often, I found myself weaving together memories and expectations into various justifying, clarifying, or reassuring narratives – finding substance in them, a place to “be.”\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes I would notice, while watching this activity, that “stories” appeared to me as thin, transparent overlays on top of the “reality” of the moment – the concrete situation in which I found myself.\u00c2\u00a0 So I would take a step back and look for the “story” in that reassuring solidity, sometimes experimenting with ways to challenge it too:\u00c2\u00a0 saying, “This is a dream” (as I used to do when I practiced dream yoga) or “This is a story.”\u00c2\u00a0 I practiced shifting perspectives, and reflected on the ways that Wilber’s “quadrant perspectives” could be seen as different narrative streams, different ways of “storying” the world.<\/p>\n While listening to the radio, I marveled at the stories about Obama I was hearing from right-wing radio hosts and callers – how they saw him as menacing and cunning, a Manchurian candidate with plans to destroy the country.\u00c2\u00a0 Just an hour earlier, I had been listening to a Hindi song praising Obama as a “treasure of virtue” and a symbol of hope for the world.\u00c2\u00a0 What stories we weave!\u00c2\u00a0 How they sustain and guide us, and how they carry us away.<\/p>\n ~ Bruce<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Noticing my patterns of story-telling over the past few days, I was struck both by the pervasiveness of these narratives, and, at times, their compelling force.\u00c2\u00a0 And yet, like bubbles, when “touched” they also seem to pop in mid-air:\u00c2\u00a0 nothing … Continue reading