The mind is a funny thing.
It seeks always to protect and understand. To take each experience, each thought, each feeling, and categorize it. To make it palatable, controllable, manageable.
My mode of operandi when some challenge shows up in my life, has always been to think of the worst possible scenario and work backward from there. Some part of my being believed if I could handle the worst then I could handle anything. It worked pretty well until it seemed that the worst was what always occurred. And I did handle it. But over time I was exhausted mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.
Has that ever happened to you?
You see we all want answers. We all want the best. We all want to protect and avoid those things that cause pain. And so in trying to figure it all out we think some part of us is healing. But is it?
Today I had a thought. What would I do if I had a splinter in my hand. Would I ignore it and let it fester? Would I spend time trying to figure out how I got it? Did I deserve it? Was someone else responsible for getting it there? Would I need to know where it came from or what kind of wood it was?
What I realized was that things like fear, resentment, envy, anger, depression…are all feelings that the mind wants to understand.
Like a splinter if not removed they fester and over time they create more negative experiences in our lives, because after all, our thoughts and feelings create the physical manifestations we experience in our lives. Right?
And so we dig into our psyche, into our past, into our pain…trying to release it. We feel it all. But the mind in the end still has a way of keeping those triggers handy just in case. And although we may feel better in the moment of understanding, perhaps we truly have not released whatever causes us pain. Because at some point we find ourselves back in that feeling, back trying to understand, attribute meaning, uncover reasons, and let it go once more.
And I wonder. What if its more simple than that?
What if like the splinter in my hand, I simply need to remove it. What if I didn’t need to know where it came from, what it means, whose fault it was that it was there? What if I could simply move the energy of that ‘thing’ out of my field? Would the healing simply happen?
This is what I’m playing with today. Imagining that negative feeling as a splinter lodged somewhere in my energetic field and without analyzing it or needing to understand it, I’m simply pulling it out. Removing it. And when I do I feel lighter. And instead of of looking at my challenges from worst case scenario…I am thinking instead of the best scenario. Because I know that it feels better to think that way in the moment and because my feelings and thoughts are so much higher a vibration as a result, I will not plunge too far from that if it doesn’t end up there.
I’m excited to see what changes in me and in my world as a result of accepting what the mind does but not giving it any power. And instead I am choosing to pluck out that splinter from where ever it has lodged and allow the balm of faith and love to heal that space. I invite you to try it. Would love to heart your thoughts and results.
As always, live easy and be kind to yourself.
