The mistake a lot of us make in this life is that we think
we ARE our mind and our thoughts. This
is why so many of us struggle with our self esteem and beat our selves up about
not being nice enough, successful enough, caring enough, etc. etc. Part of this is we need to learn to quiet our
mind and get back in touch with the goodness and beauty of our heart and soul
(where our true self resides). Yes I
said “back” because as small children we did this, until all of the other
people and events in our life tried to tell us who we should be, what we should
do, and what we should think. The process of returning to my true self was
reawakened for me during a yoga teacher training intensive 5 years ago. When you spend 16 hours a day doing yoga,
listening to philosophy and meditating you learn a lot about yourself! It was during this week that I started to
understand some of my patterns. I had
also started practising mindfulness meditation which was also making some
things pretty clear about myself. The
one that was a big eye opener for me was the constant planning, when I was
meditating and labelling my thoughts, it quickly became apparent that most of
them were “planning”. Planning what I
was going to do, planning what I was going to say, and planning what I was
going to think!! LOL. Awareness is
always the key to change and I knew that if I was always planning I wasn’t
really happy in the present. I had known
this in my heart for awhile but I had let my mind convince me otherwise. I did make some major changes in my life over
the following six months; I separated from my husband, moved my children and
myself into an apartment, got a new job and began a life long journey of self
discovery. What I have learned is that
if I follow my heart and don’t let the fear and negativity of my mind control
my life, I seem to get exactly what I need. The other benefit has been a
feeling of love, peace and contentment that I can share with the world! I have also learned that when I forget this
concept, as the human part of me often does, I start to try and control my
life. This never works!! I become sad, mad, resentful, disappointed,
victimized and needy. Most of the people
around me can’t see this (I’m very good at hiding it) but I feel it and I don’t
like it!! Fortunately now it doesn’t
take me long to realize exactly what is going on. . . .its that darn mind
thinking it knows better than ME!! I
just need to spend a little extra time caring for myself and it will pass
quickly. Lots of people say to me that they can’t mediate because they can’t
shut off the thinking. I know it is a
challenge and sometimes I absolutely can’t do it either. But a good place to start is spending some
quiet time “watching” your thoughts.
Label them if that works for you and soon you will discover lots of
things about yourself. I started with 15
minutes a day, create a sacred space (or corner) for yourself so that you want
to spend time there, make it comfortable.
Use a comfy chair or cushion, light a candle, put on some inspirational
music, whatever works for you. You can’t change what you aren’t aware of, so
start creating some awareness of who you really are. Get to know yourself really well, the good,
the bad, the ugly because it is all part of the wonderful beautiful you!!
No comments:
Post a Comment