zenjones

It faded over last weekend. And the thing I miss most is the confidence. I don’t know if that’s exactly what I’d call it. But I didn’t second-guess myself. If I wanted to do something, then it was the right thing to do, and I was off doing it. Now, since the big fade, I talk myself out of it. I stay home. I don’t take chances. I don’t try new things. I don’t expand my world.

I’ve always liked self-help programs. I like the way they lay it all out. The way they say, Do this and this, and you will be cured! Your problem will go away! I like that illusion of control. But I long ago recognized that they don’t work. I’ve only bought one or two self-help books, and that was after a lot of research. And they didn’t work.

Still I clung to my attraction. All I needed was the right key, the right instruction, and suddenly I would be all better.

I turned to my zen practice in a moment of clarity, 15 years ago. But I never saw, ’til this sesshin, how my practice could affect those fears that hold me back. I thought it would be an intellectual thing–I’m an intellectual, that’s where I like to play. But it wasn’t.

It was something in my body. And I want it back.