Excerpt from The Mechanics of Mindfulness, an upcoming class by Kelly MacInnis

We are creatures of habit. This is by design. As we repeat an experience it becomes automatic. This is why, after a while, we can ride a bike or drive a car without thinking about the steps involved.

This automatic feature or our being is at the foundation of our physiology. It is what keeps us breathing, our blood flowing, and our food digesting. It is why we don’t need to know how we move  a finger or how to grow hair.

Things become automatic in human consciousness too. When we keep thinking something for a while, it starts to fade into the background of our consciousness; still there but not as noticeable. If we continue thinking the thought it becomes completely automatic, we don’t notice it at all. These fully automatic thoughts are beliefs.

When a thought is maintained long enough to become fully automatic, it keeps resonating in our physical being and our consciousness. These beliefs or thought habits become the foundation of who we know ourselves to be. They effect our health, our relationships, our ability to make money, even what we experience in life.

If you have ever tried to change one of these thought habits, you know it can be very tricky. Even identifying our beliefs can be a challenge…..

How many thoughts does it take to change a light bulb? It depends on how many you’ve changed.

Something strange about handstands, when you start doing them and get good enough to stay up for a little while, you start to see things differently. I wrote a book called “Being the Father I Always Wanted, Fathering Ourselves So We Can Father Our Children”. The book’s premise is that men feel, a lot. The only reason it seems like they don’t is because our culture trains male children to stop feeling, to fit in. Most men didn’t seem to like my book much. Women loved it though. I should rename it, “Why Men Hide Their Hearts” and market it to women.

This post is not about that but it is just as upside down, from a US cultural prospective. This post is about Puritan ethics and the resulting twisted ideas we have about love, beauty, touching (yes, including sex), and personal relationships in general. If you are wondering where the information came from, it came from a combination of handstands, singing bowls and The Eternal Perspective.

Did you ever have an impulse to say or do something loving to someone, then not do it. Maybe telling a complete stranger you think they are beautiful. Or listening to a good friend complaining about their stomach and wanting to just touch them gently and say how nice it really is. Or having the impulse to hug someone and then at the last second doing that sideways thing where there is only contact at one shoulder.

People express anger or frustration to strangers with ease. It is not okay in our culture to express love, especially spontaneously. I don’t think we planned to be so prudish when we were eternal beings deciding to come here. If a man sees a woman on the street and feels the impulse to tell her she has a nice ass, generally the woman reacts by feeling abused, like that man just took something without asking. What would cause a man to say something like that? Could it be love speaking?

We act as if people’s spontaneous love and affection is motivated by some dirty urge to do harm; as if we need permission to find each other attractive. We pretend that there is only one possible idea of beauty and the other 95% of us should hate ourselves and wear bags in public so no one has to suffer. If someone does dare to show a nonstandard form, they end up busted by the fashion police, ridiculed behind their back or to their face.

What does this do to our sex lives? Why do we even call it a sex life? As if sex should be separate from our regular life. As if sex is some necessary evil that should remain quietly in the corner until reluctantly called. What does this do to sex in our lives? We schedule it with our partners, after every other thing is done, if we have time. We avoid unscheduled contact because we “know” they only want sex. We hold our selves at arms length for fear of appearing too wanton. If we have a one night stand we chock it up to some primal need being fulfilled. We would never allow the possibility that that may have been an expression of love. Even within the act itself we are restrained, conforming to what?

Why should you hide if you have stretch marks, you earned them, working hard? What purpose does pretending I didn’t notice you looking at me serve? If you please me and I say so, why would you bring up my wife, as if that is going to stop me from having the genuine feeling I just had. What are we protecting? At what expense? What is the point of having this wonderful life in these amazing bodies if we are going to spend it in an emotional box? We are so careful that every urge to love is monitored, controlled, stifled and repelled. We allow loving expression only in the most ridged framework. Everything else is perverted, or they didn’t really mean it that way.

The love I feel for you is real. I know, I feel it. I approached you at an unscheduled moment because I was moved to. It wasn’t some savage urge seeking fulfillment. It was love. I told you I love you. It doesn’t mean run away. It doesn’t mean that I’m cheap or cheating on someone else that I also love. It means I love you, that’s all. You can’t stop me, or yourself, from loving. You can try to stop the expression but that will make you sick. You may as well enjoy it.

You are not going to be so individualized forever. When you’re done here, are you going to go back and say, “I was good! I hardly expressed love at all, and I rejected almost every expression of love that came my way?”

alternate ending

A new friend asked me to write a short bio. She was making a flier for a yoga class we are doing with singing bowls. I put the project off for a few days, not sure what to say. I finally decided it wasn’t going to get done at all if I didn’t start. I was feeling a little cheeky and silly. I wrote the following:

“Kelly MacInnis is a member of an elite group of about 8 billion beings of light that volunteered to enter the theater of physical creation. Our purpose is the expansion of that creation through experiential exploration of the work in progress. Kelly maintains his focus on the eternal aspect of his service. He stands as a constant reminder that each of us is the master of our lives (art). We can, at any time, extend our awareness into the atmosphere of wellbeing, safety, and support that has always been our calling. Kelly’s primary interest is in deepening personal relationships on all levels through trust and love.”

It was early in the morning and I was still feeling playful so I sent it, along with a link to my regular bio so she could opt to throw out the silliness and get down to business. To my surprise, she liked it. I talked to her a few hours later and told her that while I believed what I had written, I was not sure it would inspire people to come to our class. She thought it would and she used it.

Something happened to me that day. I started viewing my life through the eyes of one who was larger than my physical body and older than my lifetime here. I started taking the incidents of my daily life with the stride of someone eternal that was having a human experience. I did not intend specifically to do this nor was I trying to. It just started happening. Something about writing that bio and then saying I believed it, brought the experience of it into my awareness.

In case you are wondering, taking this perspective changes everything! When you see yourself, and everyone else, as eternal, you don’t get very invested in, well, anything. It is like being an actor in a play. Playing your part as best you can, but still remembering that you are an actor playing a part. It is strange how many people are so invested in their role that they forget the larger, brighter, older, wiser part of themselves. It is such a relief to remember!

I remember listening to Allen Watts saying that we are all playing parts in a grand game. I liked the idea of it but without an eternal perspective I just couldn’t see how that information was of any use. Somehow seeing yourself as that angel of your dreams, as the eternal soul that you sometimes remember you have, makes it real. It is like doing a handstand. Suddenly everything is upside down. Instead of being a body that may have a soul, you are a soul that has a body.

After being upside down for a little while, it starts to seem normal. It has only been 4 days but am not sure I could go back to seeing myself, or you, as a human that “could” have an eternal part somewhere. My life has this spark to it now. Cleaning toilets seems like an adventure. I feel kind and brave and true. I feel like I am in love with everyone and I have the daring to say so. I feel safe and supported and free to explore whatever I want, including my love for you.

Anyone want to dance?