How many times do we get caught up in a storyline that our minds created a long time ago to make sense of the world, but that are no longer true? Why do our minds continue to hold on to these storylines for dear life even though our knowledge and the world has changed?
Our need to make sense of the world and categorize it in black and white categories creates suffering. The world is grey, it is colorful. It is a mixture of good and bad, right and wrong, Love and hate, kind and cruel, ying and yang (light and dark).
When we create a storyline based on only one aspect of life, we are creating suffering for ourselves and the world. Why? Because we are limiting ourselves and others. We are ignoring other parts of reality and limiting growth, freedom, wisdom and compassion. How would we feel living in a world without all of these?
We can get in touch with this suffering by feeling into the consequences of the limitations our minds create. We can feel into the contraction of our muscles in our body. We can feel the stubbornness and rigidness of our minds. And we can feel the constriction of our freedom and that of others.
How do we feel when someone has created a storyline around who we are when we know thats not who we are? Yet we do this to others because we believe we cannot handle ambiguity and that we will be safer if we keep people in boxes of storylines.
The way to transform this kind of suffering is by paying attention wisely, to all the feelings I mentioned above and what they do to our relationship with others and with ourselves when we “react”from this place. Do they bring goodness to these relationships? Or do they, for the sake of keeping things in boxes, bring anger and resentment?
To learn how to not engage in rigid storylines is to suspend judgment for a few moments, and be there mindfully with all that arises in the moment. We can use the breath as an anchor and see that all the storylines we create are just clusters of thoughts that come and go. Ultimately, it is our choice whether we hold on to these or not.
Looking into suffering 