Day 95: 3 Books About Thoughts and Emotions
I’m reading a new book. Bending Reality by Veronica Song. It’s about being in contraction or expansion. And basically creating your own reality by quantum leaping through healing past stuckness.
It’s giving “The Untethered Soul” vibes.
The author went to Yale and Harvard. She did the whole “successful by society’s standards” then realized she was numb. She then came up with her framework to help founders bend reality. She says she’s not modality specific, that she uses all of them based on what is needed.
She’s mentioned somatic practices. I don’t think I do anything somatic. I should probably dive into that.
It’s all about healing your nervous system. And how “the body keeps the score”. Which was also a part in the Untethered Soul. Where when we experience something negative we crystallize it and then spend the rest of our lives trying to avoid anything that can get close to that hurt. From fear of opening the pain again.
But to quantum leap into your divine design or destiny, you have to dissolve that hurt.
Both books are heavy on saying most people spend their whole life trying to avoid pain as opposed to a couple moments of discomfort to then experience true bliss.
I try not to avoid but I also try to think my way through things. When you’re just supposed to feel your way through it I think, am I doing it right? Am I feeling? Or am I thinking I’m feeling.
Both of those books should work together. Because part of the Untethered Soul is to witness thoughts. Which is also a big theme in Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now”.
The author of Bending Reality talks about ways people tap in. And I definitely “tap in” when I’m showering, which is one way she mentions. Other ways are dancing, running, cooking, meditating, etc.
Anyways, I listened to the book a lot today while working on a puzzle. Many hours later I got into the shower. I thought about some of what she said while in the shower. I closed my eyes and while the water hit my face thought about how with my eyes closed I could be anywhere. I thought about Italy. And how last year I was standing in a shower in Italy. It still trips me out. Being in a building so old and with Italian water hitting me in the face.
Which then made me think about how my bodies been all over Europe. My dad was stationed overseas for the first few years of my life so we went everywhere. I tried to think about showering or bathing in Paris. Or Switzerland. And drew a blank.
Then I thought, how could I have never been bathed as a child. And then thought of when we were stationed in Virginia for the first time and I was about 6 or 7. I remember my sisters and I would all have to bathe back to back on Sunday.
Anyways, some memories came up, not good ones. But they explained a lot. I started to feel shame. I went from “blissful Italy water on my face” to “gross habits due to sensory issues” within the span of a couple seconds. Then thought, is this what the fuck I’m supposed to be doing? This is how I make quantum leaps? By remembering past shit from my childhood that explains some things but also makes me currently squeamish.
Rereading that makes me think that yes, it is what I’m supposed to do.
