Here’s what I learnt about ‘equanimity’:
- While I may be able to bring rational balance to my thinking, at times I have brutally low dopamine levels – which make me want to stim, avoid, seek relief.
- It can be extremely hard to start new things
- I looked up #dopamine on IG… so helpful.
- So maybe I would meet the criteria for ADHD as well as ASD. Who knows?
- I earnestly seek the ‘reward’ of well done
- This is basically about gentle self-parenting… and it’s not so ‘exciting’ and it needs ongoing work…
And then THIS notion arrived! To say to self, ad infintum:
“You’ve done really well [with xyz],
Here, have a little treat.”
[aka: “Here, H.A.L.T.”]
And the little treat can be whatever is actually already there at the moment:
- the comfy chair I’m sitting on
- the hot water I’m washing my hands with
- the food I’m eating
The point is that I am constantly affirming that I’ve done well – and frankly, any of us who have navigated a few decades of life have done really well! – and that I can accept the little rewards of life. It’s a way of self-parenting mindfully and of pumping the dopamine pump. And it turns everything in our orbit into a gift for good effort. It flips the coin of ‘no pain no gain’. It rewards ease with ease with ease…. which is how the cork floats, right?
Right! This is all about giving up crisis and drama as your go-to means of dosing the brain’s hunger for dopamine stimulation.
I hear you. I got a bit hooked on severe crisis for a few years – it hurt, but my goodness, you knew you were alive. Life in the old higher frequencies of peace and calm can feel a bit…
‘Vanilla’?
Ha! Idk… Where are the hits of ecstasy?
Yesterday I was longing for that CONNECTION with the metaphysical world…
Is this not enough for you?
🙂 Forgive me… I could have these conversations all day long, but life keeps butting in and needing my attention. I wish I could have more of a sense of this connection in the space-time reality of everyday life.
Are you able to see how much connection you have going on when you are working?
I sense it sometimes, it’s true. It’s pretty awesome at times… I guess then I start to hanker for that too, but it’s draining!
Right! So know that your connection with the sublime that you seek is with you all the time. Sometimes you align with it, and feel great, and other times you lean away from it, and feel lost and alone. Over time you’ll align with it more. Like today, you can choose to align with that knowing of All Is Well, or you can lean in to Doubt.
Yesterday I heard Abraham-Hicks define compassion vs empathy almost exactly as I do, but better. Something like: compassion as staying in alignment with what one knows to be true while seeing someone else’s predicament… For me, Compassion is about taking action to prevent and alleviate suffering, while Empathy is just getting in their shoes and feeling their suffering (not so good for generating uplift).
Uplift. There’s your word for today. A-H talked about someone being an ‘Uplifter to their core’. Know that offering UPLIFT to another person is a gift of frequency recalibration. You can bring uplift by offering the spirit of ‘Here, HALT’ [have a little treat] to those you see today.
I’m travelling to see my darling Dad and step-mother, and cousin and husband, with my DD2, for Sunday lunch.
So take the uplift of “Here, HALT” with you. A little treat can be a gift, or a word, or a reflection … And it is first self-administered. So today, uplift yourself and others with the awareness of as many ‘little treats’ as possible. Everything can be a ‘little treat’.
I remember I used to say to myself ‘a treat is not a treat’ referring to my predilection for self-medication by wine, crisps or chocolates…
You were right. The little treats are already there. Absorb them, recognise them for what they are. Cease waiting for ‘something else’. See what is there, in the moment. There is a reason the phrase is, “Here, HALT” – because the treat is always already in the Here & Now. Get it?
Got it. Ty.
I am uplifted by “Here, HALT”