From Katrijn Van Oudheusden.
The event
I’m at the hairdresser, looking at this face with all its sagging bits that I swear weren’t there the last time I was here. I notice that no matter how I tilt my head or stretch my features, those bits stubbornly remain right there, literally in my face. The hairdresser notices, smiles knowingly, and tells me to hold still while she works on the part of my appearance she can alter.
The interpretation
The body is quite obviously aging. It seems to have accelerated lately, approaching 50. There are so many beliefs around aging. Here are two you might recognize — and it can be interesting to add your own:
- Staying healthy while aging is due to how well you took care of yourself. Health aging is your achievement, unhealthy aging is your own damn fault.
- The worst aspect of aging is when you become dependent on others. This must be delayed or ideally avoided at all costs.
Of course, these beliefs cause unease or even suffering. But here’s the frustrating bit: we believe we’re not supposed to have these beliefs!
Because we’re spiritually advanced enough to know we’re not the body, right? And we know that aging is part of life, not something to try to avoid or manage. And if we were truly awake we’d no longer care about bodily things and just rest in the peace of pure awareness all the time …
The inquiry — please pause at every point to check if it’s true
- Is it a problem that these beliefs appear, or is the problem that we think they shouldn’t?
- Do you control what you believe? Belief simply means a thought is currently accepted as true. Please look carefully. Don’t continue until the answer is clear from your own experience.
- So if we say, don’t believe your thoughts, or question your beliefs — who is going to make that happen? It could happen. It does happen. But is anyone in control of it happening?
- Believing something, for 5 seconds or 50 years, is spontaneous. You have no say in the matter.
- No one has control over what they believe. Imagine if we all knew and lived this!
- Then can our beliefs in any way define us?
- What knows all beliefs as they come and go? Stop and recognize that.
- Is that ever changed or affected by beliefs?
- Could this unaffected, ever-present knowing be what we are?
Stay in the seeing and be free.
Kat.
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