(no subject)
"The moment you become aware of the ego in you, it is strictly speaking no longer the ego, but just an old, conditioned mind-pattern. Ego implies unawareness. Awareness and ego cannot coexist. The old mind-pattern or mental habit may still survive and reoccur for a while because it has the momentum of thousands of years of collective human unconsciousness behind it, but every time it is recognized, it is weakened."
-p. 64, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Yesterday evening, when I stopped at the library on the way to church, I think I may have had a panic attack. My heart was racing, and I broke into a cold sweat, but oddly, I don't think that I was panicking. My mind was not going a mile a minute as it usually does when that happens...and when I got to church, I had trouble focusing for a while, but then I got into it and was able to go back to center and to calmness. The odd thing is, I think it was because of (don't laugh) because of what I had for lunch - the pharmacist bought us pizza for lunch, and I had about 3 glasses of Coke with it, and I don't usually drink caffeine because it has a large effect on my body, part of which is being a diuretic. But the whole idea of a caffeine-induced panic attack seems somewhat unlikely.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that that Thursday night was the last time I was going to see J at his parents' place, since he's finally (yay!) moving out this weekend, so now he will live about 45 minutes away instead of 15 minutes, and maybe because I had gotten into the habit of seeing him on Thursday nights and now that habit is going to change, and we all know the ego hates change...but it's not like I'm not going to see him. His housewarming gift came in the mail today, and at some point I'm going to give it to him, so what gives?
Old mind-patterns (like panic attacks) may survive for awhile because of mental inertia, but I don't really feel like I'm in that place anymore...so perhaps this was just an echo, the ego "fighting back" as it were, it was more confusing than it was distressing, just because I didn't know why it was happening. No harm done, though.
*decides not to gossip about work drama in which I am not really involved but can see both sides of*
It's going to be a beautiful weekend, I hope everyone enjoys it :-)
-p. 64, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Yesterday evening, when I stopped at the library on the way to church, I think I may have had a panic attack. My heart was racing, and I broke into a cold sweat, but oddly, I don't think that I was panicking. My mind was not going a mile a minute as it usually does when that happens...and when I got to church, I had trouble focusing for a while, but then I got into it and was able to go back to center and to calmness. The odd thing is, I think it was because of (don't laugh) because of what I had for lunch - the pharmacist bought us pizza for lunch, and I had about 3 glasses of Coke with it, and I don't usually drink caffeine because it has a large effect on my body, part of which is being a diuretic. But the whole idea of a caffeine-induced panic attack seems somewhat unlikely.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that that Thursday night was the last time I was going to see J at his parents' place, since he's finally (yay!) moving out this weekend, so now he will live about 45 minutes away instead of 15 minutes, and maybe because I had gotten into the habit of seeing him on Thursday nights and now that habit is going to change, and we all know the ego hates change...but it's not like I'm not going to see him. His housewarming gift came in the mail today, and at some point I'm going to give it to him, so what gives?
Old mind-patterns (like panic attacks) may survive for awhile because of mental inertia, but I don't really feel like I'm in that place anymore...so perhaps this was just an echo, the ego "fighting back" as it were, it was more confusing than it was distressing, just because I didn't know why it was happening. No harm done, though.
*decides not to gossip about work drama in which I am not really involved but can see both sides of*
It's going to be a beautiful weekend, I hope everyone enjoys it :-)