I
recently had a conversation with a college about ‘reading in the bus’. The
conversation came about because we both take the same bus and my college
noticed that I study in the bus every day. She
told me that she cannot read in the bus very well because she tends to get
nausea. I said that I also used to have this, but that I pushed myself and now
I no longer get nausea when reading in the bus. She was surprised and said: oh, so this is a mind thing?
In
this blog I would like to share a little bit more background on what I did to
bring this change about.
Initially
when being faced with the possibility of having to read and study in a bus, my
reply was that I am not able to do this ‘because I get nausea’. This was in
fact so, whenever I had tried to read or study in the bus (or in a car) in the
past I would get nausea and I would soon enough close my books and do something
else. Yet, in a conversation my partner challenged me on this and said: that
may very well be so, but it is a belief in your mind based on a memory. Somewhere
inside me I could feel that there was a truth to this, even though I felt like
saying that this is not true and I am really like that. In self-honesty, I had
to investigate this point deeper to find out for myself.
And
so I did: I forgave myself for having accepted and allowed myself to create the
belief that when reading in a moving bus or car I will get sick or I will
become nauseated. I allowed myself to realize that I had LIMITED myself with
the belief that I will get sick or become nauseated when reading in a moving
bus.
On
a next occasion when sitting and reading in a bus, what happened is that: there
was a slight movement in me where ‘the nausea’ wanted to come up – I could
feel it coming up - yet I simply
breathed consistently and focused on my whole body and what happened is that the
nausea dissipated like a fog – it cleared away.
And
this is how I moved myself through a self-limiting belief such as that I will
get nausea when reading text in a moving bus.
For
more information on the specifics of how to apply self-forgiveness, please
visit: www.desteni.org
