Breaking Boundaries

It’s time to throw a bunch of boundary breaking “micro-exercises” at you. Here’s a list of eleven things to do to break a variety of patterns and get to see what it’s like to be in a situation where typically you would just cruise on automatic.

TRY THESE:

1. Try to sense your way around a room with your eyes closed. Tune into the smells and sounds as you do. Develop a mental map that is not visual.

2. Use your feet to pick up things, open a door, flush the toilet, turn on the TV, etc. Try this for an hour and see if you can get through it without using your hands.

3. Read a whole page in a book upside down.

4. Write the sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog,” backwards in cursive.

5. Hold your soap and your wash cloth in the opposite hands while you bathe.

6. In your next conversation, try to blink every time the other person blinks, but don’t get caught doing it!

7. Next time you are washing your face, try to think only of the point exactly between your eyebrows, but continue to wash your face.

8. Try to talk while feeling your heartbeat, or if this is not immediately possible, just try putting your attention on the general area of your heart for the entirety of your next conversation with anyone. Note whatever emotions come into play while doing this.

9. The next time you talk to some one, whenever that person pauses in their speech, repeat, in your mind, the last three spoken words.

10. Using your peripheral vision, practice seeing the sides of your nose during conversations. Easily be aware of the nose being visually available to you.

11. The next time a person is angry, note how much their voice has changed in pitch, volume, and tone.

ASK YOURSELF–

Okay, now, once and for all, after all this encouragement to recognize that I am identifying myself as a massively complex array of patterns, do I or do I not believe that I am beyond patterns? Am I something intangible, inexpressible, absolute, pure, infinitely transcendental or, is a pattern answering this question for me?

In that instant when I thwart a pattern, do I step outside myself, or do I merely use my mental editing pattern?

Could I possibly have an aspect of life that is truly me, and yet it has NOTHING to do with psychology, spirit, physiology, intellect, mind, heart, values, philosophy, morality, religion, life, death or enlightenment? Could I be beyond all that? What are my experiences during these exercises that have led me to that doorway? Have I ever peered into life from the other side of that doorway?

Psycho-physical-spiritual patterns keep me safe. These patterns are my talents and skills. These patterns are my relationships. These patterns are the basis for EVERYTHING, including the consistency of my personality. So, what value would “the beyond aspect” have to me? If ALL THIS has nothing to do with “me,” then what use is “me” to ALL THIS? When I look in the mirror, of what value am I to my image?

Am I prepared to accept that patterns are knee-jerk, lock-step, boundaries that keep me from expressing me-self fully? Do I have to give up all patterns to be completely in the now and unfettered?

If I just let ALL THIS do whatever it will and did nothing, would that be a spiritual event? Or, would the spiritual aspects of life also be just another set of patterns? Or, am I already in exactly that circumstance now, but my patterns don’t know it yet?

If I saw someone who couldn’t stop looking in a mirror, what would I think of that person? What if that person insisted that it was the image in the mirror that was talking, moving, etc.? What kind of help would I give that person?

But, what if that person had arranged to be hypnotized to totally identify with the mirror image, and just before being hypnotized, the person told me not to attempt to stop this enchantment, NO MATTER WHAT? What if I saw this person suffering because the room seen inside the mirror was so small and boring? How would I get this person to come out of their trance without breaking my promise?