Too often, we get sucked down a spiral of unhelpful, dis-empowering thoughts just like I did last night. And we get so consumed by it. And as we do, we feel more and more angry and outraged because, while we may not notice it, we’re feeling that our world, which we’d got to a nice and comfortable level of control, is slowly (or rapidly) spinning out of control or at the very least, no longer the way we had it and want it to stay.
The crazy thing is, this situation can be triggered by something as simple as something that someone has said or done. Almost always, it would have been said or done with no intention whatsoever to knock us off balance, to hurt us or give us a hard time. It would have been done ‘accidentally’ i.e. unintentionally. And even when it has been done intentionally, the intention would almost always have been quite divorced from any intention to hurt, upset or derail us.
Of course, there are times when people are very intentional about wanting to hurt us or make us feel small or weak. In these situations, there is a deeper truth that we are not aware of or are unlikely to remember when we are in the spiral of disempowerment. That deeper truth is this:
Unloving behaviour can only come from an unloving state of mind which is a mind that is not in its natural state of love. And the only way we can be our natural state of love is to be in a state of mindfulness i.e. to be present.
But, these types of awareness rarely come to mind as we slip into an automatic trigger-reaction behaviour. Instead, we mindlessly, through sheer force of habit, feed these thoughts of grievance and feelings of anger by giving them an enabling attention. In other words, we feed them with more thoughts that allow them to develop into a story where we are the much maligned party and the other, the offender.
If you practice mindfulness, this is less likely or at least, you’ll be quick to notice that this is happening. Each instance of noticing softens the blow, dissolves it a little, snuffs out the fire momentarily. If you are completely present, it disappears completely and your natural peace is allowed to surface.
Really, the actual practice is not difficult. What seems to make it difficult is our reluctance to do it! And what makes us reluctant to do it are our beliefs around the situation in the first instance, but more importantly, our deeper, core beliefs about who we are and how we relate to the people and things in our world.
Meditation can be a balm that soothes our burning wounds by restoring us to a state of peace. But it can also be a penetrating light that illumines every bit of darkness within us, darkness that happens when we block the light with our beliefs and the thoughts, judgements, fears, attachments and aversions that they give rise to. It is the light that helps us see truly, fresh and without error.
Stay fresh.
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