Sometimes We Feel Powerless

Are we just reaction machines?

What do you feel when you look at the morning’s headlines or listen to a news broadcast?  Does what you see make you afraid?  Angry?  Tired?  Bored? 

From Geralt on Pixabay

Looking at my own experience, what underlies any and all of those reactions is the feeling of powerlessness.  My mind variously describes this feeling as, “it’s a big world out there, and I’m just ‘little me’” or “Most of what I see is out of my control” or even “The best I can do is learn to allow it to be, to enter my awareness through the front door and exit out the back.”

I do feel that powerlessness.  It’s a regular feature of my emotional landscape.  But what if powerlessness is an illusion?  What if I’m just so accustomed to looking at the world that way that it doesn’t occur to me that there might be a another, better way?

“That’s interesting,” you might say, “but I have to go to work.  I’ll think about that later.”

I don’t blame you for saying that to yourself.  After all, you do have more pressing things to think about.. right?

However… suppose you were to calm down, sit comfortably, quiet your mind, and be the witness, the observer of all that goes on inside you.  Suppose you were to cultivate that ability in yourself to the point that you could observe your thoughts instead of thinking them?

From Geralt on Pixabay

Here’s what I think you’d observe.  I think you’d watch very familiar patterns of thought play out in your mind, patterns which have over the years of your life increased in sophistication and complexity but maintained the same themes.  You might become able to recognize those themes.  They might sound like:

“It’s not my fault.”

“They’re not playing fair.”

“They have so much and I (or the rest of us) have so little.”

“They’re so stupid.”

I hear thoughts in “my head” that sound a lot like that.  I also hear those thoughts articulated by young children…  so, maybe things haven’t changed as much as I might like to believe they have!

Anyway, back to cultivating the ability to witness your thoughts.  You might feel that you don’t have nearly as much control over those thoughts as you think you do.  Eventually, you might come to feel that it’s something else besides you that’s thinking them. 

In his book, The Art of Mastery, Peter Ralston explains how actions relate to perception:

“Your actions are determined by your perceptive-experience… whatever action your mind thinks is called for in relation to what you perceive, that is what you will do, and you have no choice about that.”

Notice that Ralston doesn’t say, “… whatever action you think is called for…”  He objectifies your mind as something you have, not you yourself!

At some point during your practice of being a witness to your thoughts, you might even start to get the feeling that there’s something foreign within you that’s telling you what to think and how to feel.

This morning I googled “poison parrot.”  In response, I got several references to the poisonous parrot as “a metaphor used to describe those nagging criticisms that pop into your head during the day” or something similar.  The remedy or antidote most often suggested was to notice the parrot and cover the cage! 

From a website called getselfhelp.co.uk, I found the following (This text is from “The Malevolent Parrot” by Kristina Ivings):

"There’s that parrot again.  I don’t have to listen to it – it's just a parrot".  Then go and do something else.  Put your focus of attention on something other than that parrot.  This parrot is poison though, and it won't give up easily, so you'll need to keep using that antidote and be persistent in your practice! 

From getselfhelp.co.uk

Where does that poison parrot come from?  Why is it there in the first place?  And why is it so difficult to shut up?

Now, those are questions worth asking:  Here I thought I was the one doing the thinking, and now you’re telling me not only that it might be something else that’s thinking, but that it doesn’t necessarily have my best interests at heart (thus the reference to poison)?

The way I see it, we are born into a pre-existing understanding of the world that reflects the beliefs of those who taught us language.  As we grow, we refine and expand that understanding until it becomes like second nature to us.  It becomes the water we swim in.  We look at everything we perceive through that understanding, and it determines not only what we see but what we’re able to see.  If you look at the world through rose-colored glasses (or any other color), you won’t be able to see certain other colors.

This second-nature understanding is the poison parrot.  It tells us not only what’s what but also what’s real. 

I’d like to suggest that none of what it tells us is real.  It’s all made up.

Suppose that voice in “our heads” is in fact a foreign entity with a greatly exaggerated sense of self-importance.  Why does it persist?  Why is it so hard to get it to shut up?  What is its purpose?  What’s it up to? 

Try this: what it’s up to is survival.  After all, that imperative is built into every creature that’s ever lived on the planet, including ourselves.  And since we consider ourselves to be that voice…

That voice is almost never recognized to be something we have and not who we are.  It sounds like our voice, and it’s so familiar to us that we take it for granted.  We have identified ourselves with it.  We have become that voice.  So, it’s only natural that it tries to survive because that imperative is built into us!

As long as we identify with that voice, we are not the free beings we pretend to be.  Something else is thinking our thoughts and guiding our lives.  As Peter Ralston said, whatever action that entity thinks are called for, that’s what we will do, and we will have no choice about that.

So, maybe put a cover over the parrot’s cage.  And go do something else… like whatever your heart wants to do.