Don Miguel Ruiz had an interesting comparison for the way our mind really works: it’s like we have inside our mind a parasite. An actual being that is fed by our fearfull thoughts, by our low self-confidence, by our endless guilt for not meeting a perfection standard that we didn’t even invent or agreed upon… That parasite is soaking our energy, our joy, our genuine capacity for hapiness. And we are actually facilitating it with all our plethora of “no-no” and “you must – you must” situations or conditions or commitment that we intake.
Although it’s pretty scary and lame at the same time, sort of an “Alien 3” movie-like image: a strange being emerging through our ripped flesh in bonds of blood, the comparison is worthy. At least for me.
During my Christmas Holiday 2006 I experienced a very strange feeling of rest. Of calm and peace. What happened? For short moments I was stoping to think so much. I was stoping to find responsible persons or situations for my actual condition. I was stoping to find answers to my questions. And in this process I realised that all that invisible net of thoughts and prejudices was just an obstacle to my real condition. Which, I presume, it’s a general condition: we are supposed to enjoy life, not judging it.
So, basically, there IS a parasite inside our brains that is constantly consuming our energy and is fed with all our negative thoughts. Stop feeding it and you’ll experience something new. Try ignore him for a period of time and see what’s happening.
And then, when you are trully out of his influence, once you reached a normal state, something like a childish thrill of playing a game, and had a safe distance from it, try to see who actually the parasite is: because is never you. Most of the time we are tricked into believing that we are our own parasite: social condition, status, role, financial situation, and so on, but it’s not like that.
It’s never like that :-)…
