yad_dashtan daf Hello, I'm no teacher, but I ran into some ideas that have really made my life run smoother, and I wanted to share them with you. As a man who has spent a great deal of his life looking for answers (and made many mistakes along the way) it's always nice to run into ideas that make it easier to make the right decisions. Now we'll all screw up from time to time, I mean it's only natural, but if we can learn from those mistakes, maybe keep a few tricks in mind that help keep us on track, then things will usually run a little smoother. Yad Dashtan is just such an idea. It means Keeping of the Memory. I'm no expert on it, since I'm just beginning to learn to use it, but since it's such a simple concept, I thought maybe I could describe it to you and let you decide for yourself if it has any merit. To me, Yad Dashtan is like a pool of positive experiences that you save for the rainy days. When life starts to get you down; you feel angry, frustrated or sad, you just pull out a memory from your Yad Dashtan Pool and viola! You can feel better again, very quickly. Here's an example: The other day, my daughter came up to me in the morning and gave me an unsolicited hug. It was a nice feeling, and I could feel the love flowing both from her to me, and back the other way. As it was happening, and I was feeling that love flowing, I tried to remember what it felt like, the details of the moment. Not just the sights and sounds, but the feel of it in my heart. Later that night, Halloween, she had gone out with her friend. I called her after a few hours to find out where she was, and when she was coming home. She said that she was at the mall and was leaving right then. I asked her to make sure her friend drove safely, because it was starting to snow outside, and I was worried. Well an hour passed, and I was getting VERY worried. The mall was only 10 minutes from our house, and the snow was really coming down. I got angrier, and angrier (a reaction to my worry) as the time went by. I called and asked her where she was. She was still at the mall, and she was just leaving, she said again. I was LIVID! How could she do this? How could she not call? What was she THINKING? When she finally walked in the front door, I was ready to go on the warpath. Not because of the time, but because of the inconsideration! She was going to be grounded for a week...no TWO...no make that a MONTH!! That's when I remembered Yad Dashtan. I thought back to that hug this morning, how I had felt about her, how she felt about me. I recalled the feeling, and attempted to feel it again. It worked! (I know that sounds crazy, but it's true! It worked. It was that simple, I couldn't believe it either when I first tried it.) When she walked in the front door that night, I hugged her. I told her how glad I was that she had made it home. I told her how worried I had been and asked her to call me next time if she was running behind schedule. She smiled and hugged me back, told me she was sorry and that she would remember next time. (She's done REASONABLY well.) Whenever I have blown up in the past, we go to bed upset, there is fighting and tension and we grow farther apart. This time, we had been pulled closer together, and I owed it all to a little trick I'd learned called Yad Dashtan. So next time you have a tender moment, a moment filled with positive energy, remember to Keep that Memory. Not just the scenery, but the feeling of it. Save it for some rainy day of your own. Then when you are feeling blue, pull it out and feel it again. You'll be amazed at how your outlook will change, and how the people around you will respond. Like after all, still attracts like, and Yad Dashtan is sure to attract the BEST of things to you. Guaranteed. 140104 ... daf It seems that many of us engage in an "anti" version of this..focusing on our worries, bad thoughts, anger and embarrassment instead of the more pleasant thoughts in our lives. We hyper focus on our negative thoughts and feelings, disregarding the here and now in favor of preoccupation with a head full of insecurities. 140104 ... daf Additional notes: I have been able to use that one hug over and over again. And it is AMAZING. I've been blown away by the logic, simplicity and EFFECTIVENESS of this simple rule. For as long as you can remember the feeling with clarity, it can serve as powerful medicine for whatever is troubling your soul. The hardest parts of this rule are: A) Remembering to remember your feeling in detail when it's available to you. B) Remembering to USE the stored feeling when negative emotion strikes. There are other rules in the Sufi repetoire that are just as simple, and just as amazing. I'm not for a moment suggesting that people convert to Sufism or change their current beliefs. What I'm suggesting is that we can glean pieces of wisdom from all sorts of places, INCLUDING Islamic mysticism. If we choose to ignore these bits of insight simply because of our biases against religion or our prejudices against certain religious sects, then it is OUR loss. It is rarely prudent to "toss the baby out with the bath water." I'll post another rule in a bit, if you would like, perhaps later today..perhaps in a few. It is a rule called Yad Kardan and it is a different way of using remembered feelings. 140104 what's it to you? who go blather from