Relinquishing Control

Watching and listening to myself as I speak obscures the fact that I am strenuously "trying" to "control" the act itself.

My brother came home. I began speaking with him; I found myself letting myself 'follow' the initiating thought that then became voice; it felt embodied; it felt "fast", it felt enjoyable, but most of all, it felt liberating. It's as if I let the dog off it's leash - the prying and obsessive mind took a break from torturing itself with the thought of tension; it took a backseat. It calmed down, and said "you take the reign".

But what is the reign? What, or who, am I referring to? It's bizarre. Both are me. The side that anxiously intends and attends while speaking and the part that pursues it's thoughts without restraint. It's difficult to put it into words what the difference is, but Ill try. The former, aberrant state ruminates about the subject I want to talk about. I put myself in opposition to it, and in that opposition, I build tension. This tension conflates conscious awareness, causing my self to "intend" to speak, and then to "attend" to my speech, all the while anxiously flexing my vocal chords while I'm listening. The healthy and normal self simply avoids all this; I empty my mind - I try to keep it as free from those types of thoughts as possible. When I do speak, I deliberately remind myself to let the speech flow on it's own. This allows me to stay with the emotion - a feeling that cannot be cognized. Feeling and thinking are different states, and it's a paradox that we can think, cognize, and yet be fully "embodied" and feeling ourselves in the moment; its as if feeling were the medium that conceptual awareness passes through.

It feels incredibly good to feel this way, to loosen up my hold on speaking; to let the words pour out without my anxiety about "how i sound" even entering my flow of thought. Liberating. Peaceful. I feel better, sleep better, read better. The only thought I can think when I feel this way is..."Thank God".