tai chi teacher

[stardustpilgrim]

Feb 4, 2018 5:41:59 GMT -5 @agraves said:

Firrstly, all teachers are spiritual, all people, all birds and animals,
all thoughts, everything is spiritual. I am talking specifically about
my tai chi teacher. I remember the way he made me feel. I remember
Maya Angelou talked about this. I think she was referring to the
inner child.
--
Anyway my tai chi teacher didn't make me feel good
today. This is not a bad thing. It's just a thing. An example
of a thing neighbor (young woman from down the hall)
doing exercise in the hallway.
--
I come out of my apartment with toothpaste in my mouth.
My motive was to empty the garbage. I am always suprised and
stupefied when I see her. The ironic thing is that I am half a geninus.
Some say I am half a moron. I say I am 25% indiffferent.
I am ready for sleep. She's ready for breakfast. She sees me
and then she goes back into her apartment. I tell her I'm sorry.
--
The point I am making is that I can't even empty the garabage
without feeling guilty. Today my tai chi teacher triggered me
something terrible. I can't go back to school. But I really
love the school. They say in twelve steps HALT!
Don't get too (h)ungry (a)ngry, (l)onely or (t)ired.
It is important to make distinctions about the kind of denials
you are experiencing in your life. There are unhealthy forms
of denial. That is when people deny your instrinsic value.
But a healthy denial is to know your limitations. It is to
make friends with your disability.

agraves, The hallway is 'community' property, everybody uses it. You have to use it to carry out the garbage. Your neighbor chose to ue it for exercise. There was nothing to say sorry for, there was nothing to feel guilty about. She had a right to be there, you had a right to be there. If she has a problem, it's her problem, just do what you need to do. Say Hi, carry out the garbage.

It's inevitable, at least under certain conditions, that we are going to have bad feelings at times. Was what your tai chi teacher did, deliberate? (Triggered something terrible). That is, did he intend to hurt your feelings? (Maybe he was just trying to show you something, about yourself? But abuse is a different matter).

There is part of us that is authentic, but also part of us that is not authentic. I don't know a lot about the 12 rules, but I suspect the rules are to give guidelines for how one would behave, if they always acted from the authentic self. A better way to live might be to ~organize~ your life, yourself, according to what's authentic in yourself. Guilt is going to come from the inauthentic self. Bad feelings come when the inauthentic self is *activated*.

You love your tai chi school? Just go to class when the time comes. Bad feelings might come up, go anyway. Just go, don't think about it.

All of life is a mirror. People you encounter, situations, always mirror what you are inside. So you should be thankful for what your teacher said, did. Be thankful for the neighbor in the hallway. Your reaction to every situation in life shows you something about yourself. Be thankful for all things.

The inauthentic self is always going to react to outside influences, that's basically its job description. So, always, every minute of the day, you have a choice to either be the inauthentic self or the authentic self. agraves cannot control other people you happen to be around, the place you happen to be (for example, it might be raining), objects in the space of the place you happen to be. But you can ~just be~ around people, places and objects. And for a long time maybe bad feelings are going to arise, at times, but these belong to the inauthentic self. The authentic self gives all of life space to just be what it is. If your tai chi teacher says bad things, they only effect the inauthentic self, not ~who~ agraves actually is. So let the bad feelings come, but don't claim them, don't say "I" to them. This is not easy to do, especially in the beginning. There is a way to begin ~grounding~ yourself in this not-reacting authentic self. Just take the first beginning tai chi position, just be-there-in-it for a few seconds. If you are actually doing tai chi (maybe in class), just be-in the present movement you find yourself in.

Just explore all this. Go to class next tai chi class. Feelings are like horses galloping up, but just let them come. What we usually do when feelings come, is get on the horse and ride off. Don't get on the horse, just let it wander away.

Find your authentic self. If you find and live your authentic self, all of life will become easy. You can become the calm quiet eye in the center of the hurricane, of life. The inauthentic self is always going to ~take you~ either to the past, through memory, or to the future, through imagination. If you take the tai chi first position, and-be-there, stay there (eventually in a figurative sense), see what happens.

[silver]

Why would you have toothpaste in your mouth?  That stuff burns after it's in there a while.
Aside from the toothpaste in your mouth, your situation(s) made me think of one of Bob Newhart's patients on his old show:  Whenever this particular patient comes to see him, Bob will open the door just a little bit, and the guy will turn sideways and squeeze himself carefully into the door.  I don't know if you remember that - it was long ago, but I remember it like it was yesterday I guess because I can be kind of timid and mousy like that - improvements have been made.

I can appreciate SDP's response in parts.  The authentic self sounds good.  If we never 'failed' we'd never know what we don't know - until we stumble on it.