If keeping muscles, joints, and the rest of the physical vehicle in optimal health is priority, mind not just the frame but the frame of mind as well. The mind and body are one. Thoughts and feelings affect the body–immediately, as well as in the near, middling, &/or distant future. This holds true whether we are aware of these internal states or not.

Consider this excerpt from Pathwork Lecture 124: “The unconscious is much stronger than the conscious mind because the absurdity of conscious misconceptions and unrealistic outlooks is more easily detectable and can therefore be corrected. Whatever is hidden from awareness continues to govern you without your being able, through your reason, to change it. Hence it is of utmost importance to detect such hidden erroneous outlooks.” (emphasis added)

Here are a few questions to explore: where do you compare yourself to others, thinking yourself to be better than or not as good as another? Where do you hold yourself and others to unhealthy destructive, and therefore impossible, standards? In what situations have you wished that you yourself or another person would just do or not do things according to “shoulds”, “if onlys”, and other form of unrealistic expectations? Experience shows this type of mindset is so common. But that doesn’t change the fact that the stress and agitation following from it is damaging to our health, favoring tension, inflammation, pain, dysfunction, suffering, even if we whitewash it through rationalizing, denial, or superimposing some positive attitude.

It also doesn’t change the fact that it is 100% a lifestyle option. And it also doesn’t change the fact that we humans are endowed with discernment. Whenever we use that faculty properly, and reach the point of realizing “man, I’ve been acting like an asshole by insisting that others fit into this box”, we can change. We can opt out of an old story and opt into a new story, if we choose to.

“…I work with a bunch of idiots.”

Ever feel that way? I know I have. And I’m pretty sure that over the course of my work history I’ve been that idiot someone has complained about having to work with. But the above statement came right out of the mouth of a guy who came to see me for acupuncture to treat his lower back pain some time ago. He vented this to me as I assessed and treated his tight thoracolumbar paraspinals.

I invite you to take a few moments to look into this mindset a touch deeper. Use this man’s frank admission as an access point for self-examination. Go past the immediate surface awareness so that the vague may become clear, and the unknown known. Be willing to face yourself to the point that it becomes uncomfortable. And remember that there is a Love that loves us no matter what, Who is us, and Whose Force can directly touch our afflicted places when we drop the defenses and the bullshit little-ego games.

But what might harboring such an attitude imply? “If only they were as smart as I am, if only they worked at the level I think they should be at, things would be alright. But they don’t. Pshh. F*cking idiots.”

Where does it come from? The Pathwork speaks of our three core afflictions as pride, self-will, fear. What specific prideful attitudes, willful attitudes, fearful attitudes are in you, right here and now, at the core of thinking others to be idiots, or anything similar to that? Here it would be fruitful to bust out a journal on a regular basis and really get clear on the answers to these types of questions. In my own case, anger is frequently rooted in an urgent willfulness and insistence that things go the way I immaturely want to. GODDAM SLOW DRIVER IN THE LEFT LANE, MOVE THE F*CK OVER!! FAHCK!

Why do we get frustrated by others in the first place? Look honestly where you’ve gotten triggered recently, becoming angry and frustrated along the lines of omigod, this friggin idiot. Who was involved? What were the circumstances? What did you want from the person but didn’t get? What did you not want from the circumstances but did get? Doesn’t that sorta mean part of you wishes you ruled the world? Isn’t that kinda foul? How is such an attitude not tainted by destructive self-centeredness?

Compunction and healthy shame are a good starting point for purification of the mind. Pursued far enough, we can’t hide from our conscience letting us know we’re in the wrong. Correcting our errors, especially when so deeply rooted, is a long game. One essential skill in the process is learning how to be the objective witness of our thoughts and feelings; check out this article and its sequel for some discussion on it. The yoga tradition, Buddhism, and the Pathwork also contain explicit teachings on it. Studying with friends and teachers whose wisdom exceeds our own is also a good move.

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“I’m sorry–I’m so judgmental!” The lady next to me literally just blurted that out as I’m sitting in the coffee bar typing this piece. The timing! Gotta dig it. (side note: the whole-sign house chart of that moment had the MC, Mars, and the Moon within 7 degrees of each other in Leo and Scorpio Asc). And judgmental thoughts now arise in my own mind hearing this gang of people of which said lady is a part talk shit about some dude outside the shop. The humanity of it all…

I hope you find this helpful. Best, J*

Copyright (c) Justin Jaucian