January 19 2018 No. 543
Beyond the Baseline
As we've already discussed, mindfulness enables us cope with all manner of challenge... but coping is just the baseline! Mindfulness enables us become so focused, so mentally clear that, strangely enough (!), the clarity enables us see things more clearly and, most importantly, become more clear in our minds as to what we really, really want to achieve.
Give yourself time to reflect - it is one of the most important gifts you can give yourself. Armed with your developing mindful focus and your growing ability to be in the now, the time taken to reflect doesn't just allow things to become clearer, it enables you see beyond the now, see beyond the obvious, see "around corners"! Taking time to simply reflect enables you become progressively clearer in understanding where you really, really want to go. Over the course of this week, deliberately set time aside to simply and clearly reflect.
We "experience" life through our thoughts - our patterned repetitive programmed thoughts are our only reference point for making sense of what's going on and, as you might imagine, as a result, we generally make a nonsense of what's going on, react automatically accordingly and then wonder why our life is, as most people tell me, "not so bad"!
Pathetic! That's not living at all... it isn't even experiencing. It's trying to steer a course towards our goals and objectives with a blindfold on, whilst walking in concrete boots with the laces tied together. I hope you've got the picture!
You and I need to park our repetitive thoughts... they need to be put in the bold corner, where they belong. No longer should the colour, taint or blur our understanding of both the present moment and, just as importantly, our vision for the kind of life we really, really want. Hence today's Quick Tip... you need to let your non-thinking mind come to the surface.
Obviously, the more you train your mind to experience the present - the training in question is, quite simply, daily meditation - the better you're going to get at parking your thoughts. But why wait around for the fog to clear one day at a time? Take time out, make the time, give yourself the time, to let what artists call insiration, what business people call gut instinct, what some call female intuition (entirely politically incorrectly, us guys have it too!) come to the surface and inform you.
Let yourself be informed by the yourself which is free of thought... that you knows best.
Anne waitresses part-time in an up-market restaurant. A couple of weeks ago, a well-dressed gentleman enters, strolls up to the desk and reserves a table for four, providing, as one does, his telephone number. After he leaves, Anne realizes that the Tips Jar has been emptied!
A week later there's a carbon-copy repeat performance and, as you might expect, Anne and a couple of her colleagues mention it to the Manager. Anne suggests that, if he ever shows up again, she will confront him... and you really don't want to be confronted by Anne... really!
He returns a third time, while one of the other girls is "manning" the desk. Same thing happens, everyone's furious but nobody says anything. This time out, the guy didn't even bother to leave a proper false contact number. As Anne said to her colleague "What kind of a half-wit are you, there aren't even the proper number of digits in the telephone number... do you think you might be missing a digit or two yourself?!"