Heroes, Villains, and Victims

It's all well and good to know your mental narratives are causing you pain, but how does it help rid you of the stories playing in your head. Long term, knowing they are false helps but when your up to your ass in alligators it is hard to remember why you're in the swamp.

During meditation, a simple way of dropping a thought is to label it and let it go. In everyday life there are a lot of thoughts we don't need or want to get rid of because they are causing no problems. Modifying the meditation technique can be used here.

For my emotion laden thoughts what I do is to label who I am in the story. Typically I am the hero, the victim, the villain, the judge, or the lawyer. It cover most of the instances and helps me recognize the thought as false.

The good guy can be most anything, so long as it makes you feel good about yourself in your narrative. It could be someone who is helping, protecting, serving, so long as it shows you as the good guy. As the bad guy, or villain, you are telling yourself how horrible you have been and supporting all your reasons for feeling guilty about the immutable past. As the victim, you are the one being hurt, the one who was wronged, who will be hurt further - a fiction you weave to support your suffering. The judge or lawyer can be a subtype of good guy, bad guy, or victim. As the judge/lawyer you judge others/self, argue your case, your reasons, or motives justifying the point of your story. While you will find you can be more than one of these in a single story, it's best to just say Victim, Hero, Judge, Lawyer, or Villain. Accuracy is not important. The point is to show how this is a fiction you are generating.

Avoid the desire to label other characters in your tale. This will only perpetuate the feeling you are the good guy, victim, or villain. It continues the cycle of thoughts generating your suffering and serves to bolster the ego that's driving this narrative. Recognizing who you are in the tale is key. Everyone else is your mind's window dressing.

Anytime you find yourself rehearsing something to say, especially if you find you're going over it a number of time, it has emotional significance. You are being the lawyer or judge. Use this clue to help reduce your mind chatter and the subsequent suffering it will bring.

The simple act of showing yourself as one of these is remarkably powerful at exposing the lie. It shows you the story is only that, a fiction you are spinning to pity yourself, beat yourself up, or glorify/justify your emotions and actions.

I find it hard to keep the thought afterwards. It falls away. It makes clear who you are in the story and that simple act I reveals the narrative as made up. In effect, it takes the mask off your ego. Ego doesn't work effectively when it's revealed to be the man behind the curtain.

Once you are able to release the thoughts generating your emotions, thus your suffering, you are free to find peace.