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Let Go Or Be Dragged

After a weekend of seeing people from all walks of life go through the Compulsion Inquiry (CI), intermingled with the Unfindable Inquiry (UI), it is apparent that we’re all holding something back, so to speak. And when that point of retention is found and released, great relief can be found and witnessed. You might even call what’s left peace, freedom, or happiness.

It could be said that what is being held onto is a definition of ourselves, an identity that consists of what we think we want or need to be happy, what we’ve decided we don’t want, and the image we carry of ourselves that must be just so, a carefully constructed amalgam of comforts and aversions. And so we behave accordingly. Multiple comforts equals maximum peace. So-called adverse situations create tension, anxiety, anger, and fear. What happens when we stop running continually towards a perceived sense of comfort? When we become willing to NOT turn away, and have a go with the underlying physical sense of discomfort which is driving all this running towards or away from? The zig and the zag relax into a steady baseline of rest.

The CI helps us to let go of the things, substances, activities and circumstances we are absolutely sure we need. We see our comfort zone–a drink in the evening, comfort foods, the perfect companion or lover, and the more obvious compulsions that occupy our time, money, and interest. Whatever it is you think you need; whatever discomfort it is you think you cannot or will not tolerate–those are the “yes, buts” that keep us from freedom, from the peace that surpasses all understanding. Some of them are subtly filed under “Yes, I want this, but the wanting is not really a problem.” Some of them are life or health threatening addictions. Either way, it has been witnessed this weekend that giving up our perceived sources of comfort, even a cookie, is both surprisingly effortless, yet somehow hooked up to a substratum of intense, heretofore unseen sensations that often carry a mighty and surprising pinch.

The UI cuts through the identification we have constructed around these substances and activities, through the behaviors and situations we avoid, and those we cannot or will not stop. Essentially, can you find the one who wants or needs this or that? And can you find the one who chooses as such, or controls the either the behavior driven by these mandates or the situations or circumstances that arise? If not, what is left but what is happening right now? Who could not want that?

The CI shows us the areas in which we are still insisting that life be a certain way, our MDR of perceived comforts. It has the capacity to set us free from that dogged sense of my will; not thine. The suffering that is engendered by the illusion of my will is seen and deconstructed at its root. The UI leaves the whole premise of struggle behind. There’s very little identity left that could quarrel with any of this. The absence of any argument with what is heralds the end of seeking and the suffering that accompanies that movement away from the home we never left.

These are only words, so the mind can get curious enough to look and see. The experience itself needs no words, and no convincing or understanding is necessary at that point. A smile is enough. See for yourself.

Posted on by colettekelso · 1 Comment

Beyond Compulsion

I don’t know what is true. I can only describe what the experience is from here. All the following sentences should begin with, “It seems as if,” simply to get the what-is-true thing off the table.

There is this inquiry we’re calling the Compulsion inquiry (CI). Since undergoing and working on this inquiry with Scott Kiloby, there have been significant perceptual, physiological, behavioral, and psychological shifts.

Perceptually, there is more beauty in this world than ever realized. I seem to want to take a picture, or simply stare at, everything. It’s all intricate, fascinating, perfectly stunning. Even pond scum warranted a few moments of amazed appreciation. Can’t seem to find an ugly or a plain face.

Physiologically, tension seems a curious memory. A jaw that felt clenched for millennia has to be grasped with the hand to make sure it’s really there. I must say though, these contractions had to be felt, or brought to the fore, before relaxing. So a kind of tightness was experienced first, more than once, in places I had never thought about much.

Behaviorally, I still smoke an occasional cigarette, but the need, the frantic puffing and sucking is absent. If there are no cigarettes around, there’s about as much hurry to go buy more as I would hurry to buy bananas. I like bananas, but running out of them is not a problem. As a matter of fact, I saw that there were 2 cigarettes left in a pack sticking out of my purse as I was driving yesterday. I passed umpteen gas stations during that drive, and never stopped to buy another pack. I just enjoyed the drive, windows open to this glorious fall day. Perhaps only a fellow smoker would understand that kind of nonchalance in regard to cigarettes.

A couple of times recently, I made myself a drink—but then never drank the thing. When I walked passed the full glass wherever I had left it later, I ended up pouring it down the sink. That’s not to say I won’t ever drink. It’s just that the making-but-not-drinking is a peculiar thing to report. And I have ordered one at a restaurant, yet felt no compulsion to drink it. And curiouser and curiouser–I eat when hungry, and don’t have to finish what is in front of me. Snacking doesn’t happen, seemingly because there’s no edge, no gnawing need for more or something else.

Psychologically, up until very recently, there was this certainty, this oft regaled story of being overextended, coupled with the feeling of being exhausted. This thought was believed: “There isn’t enough time in the day, or enough energy, to do what needs to be done. One person can only do so much.” Now, it’s the seeing that there are things to be done. Some get done. Some don’t. My barely perceptible jaw drops at the simplicity of that realization, and the flood of relaxation and rejuvenation that follows. There is no such thing as “too much.” And any sense of personal agency is an error of perception.

Another amazing, and recent discovery is that annoyance is a totally unnecessary precursor to a movement away. When the word “choice” is replaced by “movement,” annoyance becomes an add-on to any experience. Try this on: people are neither inherently annoying or engaging, there is simply movement towards or away from, with seemingly no one choosing the flow, like colorful tropical fish swimming around the tank. Annoyance can still happen, but it’s now seen as an elective response.

And as a bonus, look to see if there is a command anywhere, in any thought, that says “follow me,” or “believe this.” Thoughts about ourselves, the situation, or the world, do not come with a mandate to be believed. If thoughts were trains coming and going through a station, let it be seen that there is no conductor shouting out “all aboard!” Not even thoughts about non duality, or shoulds, or declarations of love, or those pesky ones that tell us what is wrong with us, have a seal of approval stamped upon them, insuring their authenticity and reliability. They needn’t be the gold standard by which we live our lives.

So essentially, there is this overall sensation of being a relaxed, content, human being that alternately engages in movement and rest; adjectives optional. There’s very little conflict or tension, but both are allowed. The thing is, there is a sense of fun, of play, relief (!), and joy, in all of this. What am I missing? Oh, yeah—this kind of talk can be seriously annoying.

To whom is this all happening, or where is this experience occurring right now? Ha! That’s the kicker. Try and find me.

Posted on by colettekelso · 1 Comment

Homeostasis and Compulsive Behavior

In trials using the Compulsion Inquiry (CI), it has been observed that addiction and compulsive behaviors have a lot to do with the body functioning as a homeostatic organism, not just in regard to physical well-being, i.e. temperature regulation and fevers, but energetically as well. It’s as if there is a baseline, which in this case appears to be rest, relaxation, and ultimately what we might call peace. When we get excited, we drink, we smoke, have sex, or we might engage in other stabilizing activities. When we’re upset, and this is clearly the case—we eat, we fidget and pace, all the above, and so on.

There is an often unquestioned assumption that the drink, the cigarette, the sex, or the piece of cake causes this relaxation response. We come to believe that we must do something, anything, to get back to “normal,” or rest, relaxation, and peace. And when we’re low energetically, i.e. boredom, we feel the need to get high, or higher. Thus we eat sweets, take drugs, look at porn, or go shopping, or bungee-jumping. Even joy and bliss can seem like “too much,” at times, so we do/eat/smoke something to take it down a notch.

Self medicating is nothing new, but to look at the energetic component, and to see there is this ongoing need to stabilize, is to make conscious this unconscious regulating mechanism. Find the baseline that exists independent of any substance or activity, and the whole roller coaster slows down to a pleasant rhythm, if not to a different beat entirely. That beat is the natural state, calling all to dance to a primordial pulse. The relaxation point discovered in the CI points this this natural state, experienced independent of substance and/or activity.

Note that it is the body that is homeostatic in its natural tendency towards wellbeing. It is a balancing act only for the presumed self. The self, or supposed doer, is the unconscious aspect—that which appears to act for its own immediate “gratification,” and only appears to have some control over what is otherwise a natural process. Peace is the body’s instinctive objective. The fictional self, in play, turns this natural tendency into a comic/tragic display of Charlie Chaplinesque antics to the contrary.

Compulsion Inquiry sessions will be widely available on or before October 1st . They are being offered now on a limited basis. And of course, as always, that which is purely conceptual can only be experienced, and is not offered or expected to be accepted as true.