Letting Love Lead

My Dear, I just wanted to say ~

When you doubt the outcome,
you live in Fear and Guilt.

When you relax and remember ~
You are not in charge, God is.

You will know
All is Well (and will continue to be well).

So, you can let go of the Fear and Guilt.

Then, make a new decision
Not to ever doubt God

And choose the action that sponsors love.

All My Lovin’

(From my upcoming book, “Love Letters From Your Soul”)

Applying Doubt

On the subject of Doubt .  .  . Alan Cohen says, “Doubt is appropriate only when applied to negative assumptions.”

Doubting myself, doubting others, doubting the outcome, are all about negative assumptions. Doubt is so often tossed like a wet blanket on events.  So that you can’t really tell what, exactly, is going on. Just that you feel unsure.

I feel that someone has treated me unfairly.  I apply doubt and ask, what have I done to deserve this treatment? Why am I being treated so unfairly? What did I do wrong?

Instead, let’s look at the negative assumption that I’m being treated unfairly.  I can then apply the doubt to ask, am I really being treated unfairly?  What does that mean, “unfairly,” anyway? What do I think would be fair?

Instead of questioning our own motives and actions, we shine the light to understand the interior of the matter. Peeling it apart we can ask questions that show us what’s really happening, rather than the inappropriate application of blame.

Peeling Apart Doubt

As I grapple with doubts about my life, my choices, my ability to hear the inner voices, Sharon Salzberg, in her book “A Heart as Wide as the World,” has a few things to say about doubt ~

She uses the example of knowing completely that she wanted to meditate, but unsure of which tradition to follow. This “hindrance of doubt” certainly gets in the way of meditating, of being in the present moment and tuning into the power in the now.  It keeps us from listening and seeing the truth.  Believing in the doubts gives them power and makes it difficult to connect to anything. 

Doubt won’t allow things time to unfold.  It wants everything right now.  If the relief we seek isn’t materializing as fast as we need it, we assume our doubts must be correct.  Being in doubt, rather than allowing ourselves to really look at the situation, makes us back away from it.  This also erupts further into comparisons. All this noise makes it  hard to hear Guidance.

This doesn’t mean we should never question.  Sharon explains, “When the Buddha urged his disciples not to simply accept what he said without any investigation, he meant that doubt should impel us to discover the truth for ourselves.”

One way she suggests dealing with doubt is to “recognize the confusion, the indecision, the questioning, not as authentic inquiry, but simply for what they are: doubt.”  This quiets the chatter since we no longer have to figure out if the doubt is right or wrong. We don’t need to find evidence of doubt’s validity.  We can just say, oh yeah, there goes another doubt.

Sharon tells a story of the Buddha, talking to villagers about how they should decide between all the teachers around in his day.  He told them if it feels wrong, stay away.  If it feels right, stay with that teacher.  Basic instruction: Listen to yourself.

You can come to see that at the heart of most doubt is a question about whether or not you can actually do it. But that can be transformed by developing a sense of confidence in your ability to see what’s real, what’s true (even if you’re not quite ready to believe completely in all that you doubt).

Sharon concludes her essay this way: “When we realize that access to the truth is our natural birthright, we can overcome the doubt that seeks to separate us from our experience. Then we draw as close as possible to each moment, not with confusion, but with wisdom.”