The Urge

What is this urge to "do" something and where does it come from? What does it feel like exactly? Where is it in my body? What would happen if I didn't act on it? A funny thing is, when I get that urge many times it seems that it would be unbearable to not act on it (or to say something, make a certain point) but  what does unbearable mean? I mean, at least for the moment, as I watch it, here I am actually bearing it so what does that feel like? Let's feel this thing. You know it's kind of weird but it's not that bad. It's OK once I just let it be there. Kind of a hungry itchy feeling. Maybe a certain kind of vibration or noisy nerve endings that always seems stronger in my upper body, head and chest. I don't really feel it in my lower body. In fact with many kinds of nervous irritation my feet are feeling quite comfortable. They're just happilly down there doing their job and don't seem to care particularly what's going on upstairs or whether, for instance, I make a fool out of myself or not. I don't think my feet have ever felt embarrasment  :)  Hmmm...

How often the urge seems to involve an automatic response or belief about something that I've let develope unconsiously over time. Like "this itch is barely noticable at the moment but it's going to get worse soon so I'd better scratch it now". I realize that I often act to prevent something (or some feeling I'm trying to avoid) that I believe will happen based on God knows what from the past. I can be acting on it way before this unseen belief even gets close to the level of consiousness. What emerges into consiousness is rationalizations and a story about who I am and why I act a certain way but the beliefs themselves never actually get looked at. It seems that one way to get a look at these lurking unconsious beliefs driving my behaviour is to try not acting on them (or even delay acting) and pay attention to what bubbles up.

So often when experimenting in this way, the urge dissapears or changes quickly and afterward looking back it's like "what the heck was that all about"? Maybe I end up acting anyway but the pause changes things.

I think we've all had times in our lives when we faced some long standing fear directly, really looked at it for the first time, to see it was just a phantom and have it dissapear forever. What if I can face not only fear but all the other unconsious emotions and beliefs that make me want to run away into unconsious action? Like boredom, embarrasment, anger and so on. I would like to see them clearly for a change. 

It seems quite clear (and common knowlege around these parts) that there is no "me" in these beliefs/emotions/behaviors. Just artifacts accumulated over a lifetime believing myself to be this separate human thing.

I don't need to dwell on it or think about it. Seeing and feeling are enough.