Doing a Mental Cleanse

I've been doing what I will call a mental purification. Kinda like house cleaning, but for my mind.

I didn't start out thinking I will do this mental house cleaning, and it will be great, only good things will happen when I do this....you know the fantasy I think when I take on changing myself.

It actually began last October. I started meditating on a regular basis. Actually, I got a meditation tape and when I awakened at 3 am, like I've been doing without fail for years now, and rather than struggle going back to sleep, I thought, "why not meditate?"

So I put the iPod on and let myself drift back to a kind of sleep, but not always, many times it's a kind of dreamless awake.

The purpose of the meditation was to expand my awareness, to become interested in my behavior so I could naturally change the behaviors that weren't working and choose behaviors that did.

That is occurring. I am seeing behaviors that I never saw so clearly in myself before. And for the most part I can see the original incident that had me choose to behave that way. I see the circumstances, I see and hear the conversations, and I hear my decision. But I see it without judgement of how wrong it was, or how much a victim I was or how unforgivable it all was.

I can see not only my unconscious behavior but all the people around me behaving in unconscious ways.

It's quite remarkable.

And I can see that many of my unconscious behaviors have cost me. Cost me in reputation, acknowledgement, joy, freedom, self-expression. Well, the list goes on.

So at this part of the cleanse I ask: What do I want now? What is next?