Power Words

I read an article on panic attacks recently for which I lost the link. The point is that it said: "nobody died of a panic attack, you could just wait it out".  This sentence, as small, and as brief as it is, had power to bring me reassurance and healing.

I immediately thought to myself: Hey! That is common sense!  The next time I felt a panic attack coming my way (this was during the Lyme disease ordeal), I remembered it, and then felt totally reassured that I would not die.  Aaaandddd, I did not die OR panic as much as I did before. I healed. It took 12 words.

Words have power: they can soothe or they can bite, they can have a double edge, be tongue twisted. They can be sharp as a knife, or soft as a feather, grounding and encouraging, or negative and disheartening. 

Sharp as a knife! Oh words can color things, alright!

Words can propel us and others into soaring, and it is only due to fear that we do not allow ourselves or let others be: "all that they can be".

Eddie Stern's response to that Times article about the woman who left ashtanga for a personal trainer said that the article was to be "forgotten yesterday".  I wonder what article you thought of when I said" "That Times article"? Was he right?

Made me think about the times we keep thinking of criticism given to us, or things that do not add value and that keep on living in our heads: "rent free".

How many people or sad story lines live rent free in your mind?

The funny thing is that the shorter the sentences i.e.: "no dancing" (from Sharath in Utitta Hastha Padangusthasana), the more powerful the message, i.e.: "just do it", "no pain no asana no come", "body is not stiff, mind is"...

And when not on the mat, how about: "It's never about the money",  "There is no way to peace, peace is the way", "Infinite patience delivers immediate results", "Cinderella was having a ball when she met the prince!"...

So I got to thinking about little powerful sentences that can help us re-focus into soaring on the wings of our highest potentials rather than falling into the pitfalls of old conditioning. Came up, found out, stumbled upon these, by various authors:

• Don't believe everything you think
• No por mucho madrugar se amanece mas temprano. (No matter how much earlier you wake up the sun won't come up earlier)
• It is what it is
• A real certificate is the glow within you, and it is not physical
• Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar
• Complaining and reactivity are favorite mind patterns through which the ego strengthens itself
• Un-Happiness arises not from the circumstances in life but the conditioning of your mind
• No self no problem
• Ultimately you are not taking responsibility for life until you take responsibility for this moment
• When you step into the now you step out of the content of your mind
• Don't just do something, sit there
• When you completely accept this moment, the compulsion to think lessens and is replaced by an alert stillness.

I have to confess that most of the inspiration of the lines above comes from reading a little book which is really not so little and actually not a book.

It is rather a compilation of signs-posts that lead to a state of being, a place where the stream of constant thinking might, just might, stop for a moment allowing the present to arise.

So, let us choose our words intelligently.  Let the consciousness use wisdom to direct thinking rather than fall victim to thinking attacks.   After all, panic attacks pale in comparison to thinking attacks.