Self-Defense from the Self part 3: disengaging

So you've got an impulse to say something or do something, to either initiate or respond to someone in some way. And you've tracked down the direction this impulse is coming from, and it doesn't seem to be coming from a healthy part of yourself.

Now what?

Well, just realizing this is what's going on, can often be enough to disarm the impulse. And if you can just stop with that realization and move on, then you have won.

You can lose when you get sucked in to wanting to combat the impulse. To try to defeat it by fighting against it; to try to reason against it; to try to force it to shut up or go away. An unhealthy impulse is fed by some form of anger, fear or both. It is a part of you that has become twisted against itself, and turned into a knot. If you meet it with anger or fear, you perpetuate the struggle that creates the knot.

But if you simply choose not to act on it, thank it for sharing, disengage from it and move on with your life, its power is gone. It may surface again, in the next instant. But it has less power; and you have more of your own self freed from the knot.

And this is the essence of Mind Fu: don't fight force with force. Unlike the physical world, you can win a mental struggle by just choosing not to play. Thoughts and ideas only have the force, power and meaning that you give them.

Emotions have force. But emotions also still only have the *meaning* you give them.

Disengaging is a skill to be learned and improved, like any other. It's not a perfection to attain, but an ability to seek improve.

There are many ways to disengage, as well. If it is a particularly painful knot within yourself, I've found a good way is to have genuine compassion for this part of yourself. You are wounded there. This part of you is worthy of all the love you have, and more.

This way of working with yourself is phrased as a strategy for defense. That's the metaphor I'm going with, but there is of course more than that. This is reuniting with yourself, and healing yourself, and knowing yourself, by learning to love yourself.

Now, love is not indulgence. Love does not mean letting this knot within you have its way. Love is: love. Wanting that part of yourself to not be in pain any more.

Sounds annoyingly hippie, doesn't it? As we're taught in modern times to disrespect them. But just because it comes from a hippie, doesn't make it wrong.