Therapist On Speed Dial?

Following a few bloggers I get a kick out of the ones that face a crisis and head for the phone to call a therapist, they just happen to have one on speed dial.  Some of these bloggers are quick to tell you they have an Ivy League education or this accomplishment, author, doctor, lawyer, scientist, teacher, etc., yet when a personal situation presents they can't get passed it unless they call a therapist on speed dial.  

The idea of sitting with it, listening to the other person and practicing patience is out! They want an answer now and not from the other person!

The rest of us, those that don't have a therapist on speed dial or are used to figuring things out for ourselves have to practice patience.  Listen to our friend, spouse, our children, and find ways to make peace with them.  The rest of us search to access new information through observation, friends, study and apply what we learn on our own through life experiences.  (YouTube has many, many, free seminars and books online to listen to for free and my favorite www.thework.com by Byron Katie, did I mention this was free?)

Learning to meditate daily to calm the mind, learning to respond and not react, came to me through listening to Pema Chodren, Thich Nhat Hanh, Deepak Chopra, Dali Lama, etc.  But I had to do the practice daily until I learned to be patient.  I found I had so much anger to placate, it took some time.

Eckhart Tolle A New World is an interesting study to check out "collective consciousness." It took me some time to become part of the waking world, a process I continue daily.  I understand now when Buddha taught it is harder for a wealthy person to awaken than one that has no wealth.  If you have worked so hard to become a title, to achieve a position, to have more than most, you do not easily want to give up an identity you have slaved years to obtain.  Yet it is in the giving up, you find yourself peaceful...Eckhart's teaching not mine.

And then there is good old "sticktoitness" that makes me look within to see things from the other person's point of view.  Probably the biggest help I received from studying Buddhism is to accept that "in every situation I find myself, what part did I play in it?"  Taking responsibility for every aspect of my life, the good and the bad really helped me to see my big ego that likes to be right daily.

Anyway, for the rest of us, I'm saying, we can achieve the same successful results without speed dial therapists, many of us have to do the work ourselves.  We can figure this life out, the answers are within, wherever we find it, good.  It is for free, all roads lead to the same truth.  We don't need speed dial therapist or another seminar, we need to look within. The mind has wonderful reasoning tools when you use it.