THE MIND BOGGLES!! |
Change Your Life | March 14 2024 No. 852 |
Perhaps it is a coincidence (and you know my views on those!) but, over the last couple of weeks, the mindfulness word has cropped up in multiple emails that I have received.
Some seem to think that "all you need is mindfulness" - a bit like John, Paul, George and Ringo! - and that everything will be alright. Others seem to think that being mindful is the key goal for which we should be striving (and you all know my views on striving - just listen to this week's Podcast!) - just like I've heard the odd guru (some of them very odd!) say that "you meditate to meditate". No you don't - you do it with for a purpose.
We develop our presence of mind - or, if you prefer, our "mindfulness" - to enable us take action. Nothing happens without action. But, as an important aside directly related to "striving", action is effortless when we are in the Flow that we inevitably experience with presence of mind.
One more aside before we continue: it is only with presence of mind that we can take action - the normally-minded way of operating only produces reaction... a world of difference.
The actions that we effortlessly take are taken to produce results. Nothing's worth anything without results.
So forget your isoteric ideas of an altered state of mind or nirvana - what results is your regular meditation delivering for you in your life, right now?
In answering that question for yourself, bear in mind that some results that you haven't even noticed because your normal way of thinking would see them as minor or insignificant are the results that you need to notice and give yourself credit for. Great journeys comprise single steps.
I finish off today's Reflection with... "Great journeys comprise single steps".
So, firstly, make sure that the single steps that you take today take you in the right direction - that's easily done if you are present. So the first step you need to take each day is to do whatever it takes to be present!
Secondly, consider how far you've traveled on this journey: how is your mood and your propensity to react difference from what it was in the past? Notice the little advances that you make and give yourself the credit that you deserve - they all add up.
Access all 851 previous weekly videos, tips, etc.
Listen to all the previous episodes of my podcast.