The Moving Sale went well with money in our pockets but still all this stuff to deal with. Where does all these things come from? Yesterday I was packing what I can to give away so I will head to Goodwill for one of my stops today. Later there will be a run to recycling for the electrical and other leftovers. Getting rid of this collection of unneeded objects feels good as if I am lightening my life. It feels good to let go of things but even better to let go of the tangles in our minds and hearts.
During a day there are thoughts and feelings that come up that make a big mess inside of you and I. Energetically it is so easy to get plugged up from what we are thinking and how we are feeling. These thoughts and feeling need to be watched or they get out of hand and drain vital life force from us. We all carry too much of the past; too much unfinished business.
Let’s talk about how the past can zap us in the now. For an example: say a relationship went off track and came apart. There is always lots of debris from these wreckages unless we learn to let go. When and how you let go is very important. Imagine we see a friend of our ex-partner and they obviously avoid us. The mind can jump on the bandwagon of worry about what they think of us and many other uncomfortable stories we can run in our head. If we don’t let go and purposefully contain the noise of our own thoughts our feelings can begin to escalate and soon we may be fuming even though nothing really happened.
There is a very slippery slope when the mind takes off in a negative direction. It can be so slippery that we could obsess for days and weeks over some imagined scenario in our own mind. We can lose all control of our thoughts and feel the intense discomfort of living inside the thought field we have created.
We can control the workings of our own mind if we choose to. If we let the ego-mind run on its own we will be a mess in no time and get caught in an emotionally web that can take a long time to clear away. If we are mindful instead we can notice when the mind is heading off a cliff and we can stop it, grab the reins, and move in the direction of something more positive. So back to the example, we see the ex’s friend and we notice the mind going into “poor me” and we instead turn it around and go to the bookstore or yogurt shop and do something that is redirecting or soothing.
The power of being mindful is that we shape our experience of life. We don’t have to let our thoughts turn our life into a minefield (mind-field) of “poor me”, blaming, complaining, feeling sorry for ourselves, anger and all the other feelings that turn life into suffering. Suffering is optional if we are mindful.
Simply watching what comes up inside and redirecting it when needed will bring peace of mind. Take some time today to just listen inward and become acquainted with what is going on in the rambunctious thought parade called our mind. Keep the focused on positive outcomes and images of the life we want to create and let the rest of the thoughts go. Be mindfully present with great compassion toward self and send the judging negative mind on permanent vacation. This way your life will feel much better and need for suffering will shrink away.