I had an interesting experience today, which really helped show the differences between Material Mind thinking and Spirit Mind thinking. So we come back to the house, it's kind of late, like six o'clock. And Hisami says, "Oh, I thought we were going to just visit this place that's close, then come back. And I wanted to spend the day, enjoying being at the house and reading a book" and so on.
My Material Mind, because it wasn't in my Spirit Mind and was at one of the extremes, got a little triggered. It was like, "Oh, I thought that we were going to go somewhere else too." And my Material Mind started getting defensive, "It's not my fault, or, you didn't say that", or, these things, but I didn't say anything and it didn't seem like a big deal to Hisami. She just noticed that something she'd wanted, had gone a different way. But as the next 15 minutes went on, my Material Mind kept trying to bring this back into my awareness, trying to take me over to the extreme.
And the Material Mind always has one of two stories it's telling for me. One side, one extreme is the story is "I'm a victim and blah, blah, blah." Then the other side, the other extreme is "I'm the hero. I'm the superstar." And these are the only two stories the Material Mind knows, it's just different versions of these. Sometimes if it's really clever, it says, "I'm a victim and the hero in the same story", right? But generally, it's one or the other. And so every couple of minutes or so, my Material Mind would pop in and try to say "But she said this and that's why this happened." And "I'm like, okay, don't really need that." A few minutes later, pop back in and "But you did this and you tried that, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."
It was basically some kind of victim story. I'd be like, "okay, I don't really need that." And so after about 15 minutes of this, Hisami and I were sitting there and eating, I said, Hey Hisami, I'm curious. I want to know more about you, so I want to ask you a couple of questions. So when you said "Oh, I was hoping to come back and read," and we didn't do that, "Did you feel bad about that?" Or "Did you feel disappointed about that?" And she said, "No, I just noticed that the energy was different than what I had been expecting or wanting." I was like, "Interesting, she never felt bad about it." And my Material Mind had this story, "she's disappointed in me in some way." That was one of the things that kept coming back, popping up in my mind.
But it wasn't true. She didn't have that at all. She just noticed the energy. She said she was just noticing the energy is different. "Oh, here's an energy pattern or circulation that I was looking forward to. Oh, and then we did a different energy circulation instead." Just this straight-up energy noticing. And then I said, okay, interesting. So I have one more question for you, "How long did you hold onto that thought or that experience, that kind of understanding of what, you know, that something different happened than you wanted?" And she looked at me a little bit, like, I don't really know why you're asking that question, but her answer was, "Well, as long as I said it and then once I said it, it was done and it was gone. And then I was experiencing the next moment. I was no longer in the old moment." And it was funny 'cause the reason I asked this was that I noticed my Material Mind was still back there. I was still back in this place trying to make a story, a believable story where I'm the victim or the hero. It's trying to stay at one of those extremes. It wasn't in the present time. It was stuck 15 minutes ago, 20 minutes ago, trying to take me back there.
So really fun just to see the differences there. When I could test that, I watched my Material Mind more and more from Spirit Mind, I noticed what it was doing. I don't take it too seriously. And then in this case, I said, "Oh, I'm just going to test this out. Let's, let's ask some questions because I want to know more about how Hisami works. I know how I work, I don't need to know more about that, you know, but I wanna know how she works because she's very unusual and, different than me. And when I asked her that and tested it, it was great because I got this realization that, "Ah, the fears or worries or stories that my Material Mind is trying to pull me toward don't have any basis in her reality."
So if the story includes her, and I'm thinking how she feels or what she might be thinking or saying or whatever, those are just things I'm making up. Those don't have anything to do with reality. So that's good to know.
And then that second thing of noticing, my Material Mind always has one of those two stories. I'm a victim or I'm a hero, or I'm the victim-hero. If it's creative, it's always going toward one of those because that's one extreme or the other, plus or minus, right?
But when a Material Mind comes back to the center in that space of Spirit Mind, I can observe. I can see what's happening. And because I've been playing with Spirit Mind for a little while, I can even observe my Material Mind when it's out at the extremes. At first, it's hard to observe when it's out at the extremes. It's just you are at the extreme, right?
But to spend more time moving up that Spirit Mind triangle, you can observe more and more that range of Material Minds. The Material Mind can be getting really crazy and extreme, and you still have Spirit Mind awareness. You can observe it. It's a benefit of practicing Spirit Mind over time as you're able to have that awareness and see more and more of yourself, really nice.
So those two things are really great. And then the third thing of noticing the time gap, the Spirit Mind is in the present time. It's just moving from moment to moment and noticing what it's noticing there, but it's not getting stuck.
My Material Mind in this case was stuck in the past, even though it was only 15 to 20 minutes. If I hadn't said anything, maybe it would've continued for the next hour or two hours or even maybe the next day. I'd think of it occasionally. It's like it tends to get stuck in the past or in the Material Mind on the other side. It likes to anticipate and get stuck in the future worrying about something that's coming obsessing about something or trying to make a choice before it's really necessary.
But both of those stances of being in the past or being out in the future, both of those stances are stressful and really unnecessary. Kind of fun. Just thought you'd enjoy hearing a little context, maybe to help you understand the Spirit Mind and Material Mind in a little different way.
