“This is not happening” is the wisest thought I’ve ever had while suffering.
Sometimes I’ll have an experience that is so unexpectedly disconcerting, so out of sync with what I’m prepared to handle that I have the thought, “This is not happening.” And I’d be wise to listen whenever the thought arises. Because it is wisdom breaking through to deliver me to peace.
But it can be hard. When that thought arises, my ego typically goes to work proving the first-draft idea that it IS happening. The ego wants first and foremost to exist and then to be accepted and included…more than anything else, including peace and comfort.
Since most people report that it IS happening, I talk myself out of the truth that this is NOT happening so I get to be a part of the group.
And when that hurts, I fret and despair and numb and go to war with imagined enemies in an attempt to escape the suffering brought on by something that isn’t happening in the first place, except in my thinking and believing.
And then, when things get bad enough, wisdom will move in again with the truth: “This is not happening.”
When things get bad enough, I finally listen.
And when I really listen with an open mind and honestly question what’s happening for the love of truth, I find that nothing stressful is ever happening outside of a STORY of something stressful happening, that there are never any problems in this eternally kind and peaceful world except the ones invented in my thoughts and solidified in my beliefs.
And I recognize the wisdom in the thought, “This is not happening.”
The more I inquire into the true nature of reality, the more my stressful stories simply unravel and the more convinced I become that all that’s ever really happening is peace and kindness and love.