For those of you who have considered meditation, I applaud you. In a world that is ever moving, which does not appear to present many opportunities for us to pause, it can seem challenging to find the time to meditate. In a world of “instant” everything, meditation may not offer the immediate results we are accustomed to getting, seeming as though it just doesn’t work.
Every so often, we magically find ten or fifteen minutes to meditate. We sit quietly with our eyes closed allowing countless thoughts pass us by. Really? We are going to sit quietly and ignore our thoughts? With a deep breath we inhale through our nose. Next, we slowly count down from five while exhaling through our mouth.
We are now becoming aware of our thoughts as they float by. Catching ourselves fixating on a particular thought we acknowledge it, accept it and then let it go. i.e. I have to finish that project for school, I have to give a big presentation, I want to buy that pair of shoes I just saw online, I forgot to call my wife back, that guy in line at the store really annoyed me and so on.
A modern-day way to understand this practice of allowing our thoughts to pass us by is hidden in our mobile phones. Our thoughts are like the hundreds of images (photos) we have on our iPhone, Galaxy phone, etc. We easily move from picture to picture with the swipe of our finger glancing at each photo as it floats by. We have the ability to delete an image that we do not care to hold on to and the ability to share an image that brings happiness and joy to our hearts.
With each glance at an image emotions immediately flood our head and heart. i.e.There we are at the beach. That was a great day!, Oh, that was a bad day. I am deleting that one, I don’t know why I have him in this photo, I want to do that again, I need to share that with my friends, Look how happy she is… A photo grabs our attention and we fixate our eyes on it. We acknowledge the image, accept it and then with the swipe of a finger let it pass us by. Still embracing the powerful positive emotions from the last image, we swipe our finger back to the prior image and spend a little more time holding that happy feeling.
We continue to swipe through our photos (thoughts) in the search for the photos that elicit feelings of happiness and elation. Another image floats by and we focus on it for a moment. Before we realize it, our hearts fill with elation and peace as we are now attracting positive images (thoughts).
Wow! That is a pretty good start. This practice of acknowledging, accepting and letting go of (swiping away) our thoughts is an excellent step on our journey to alignment and ease. Realizing that we have control of our thoughts we have the magical ability to focus on the positive, allowing the negative to simply pass by. Our hearts fill with delight.
Remember, you can’t get it wrong.
Sending you Love and Happiness!
T.E. Corner
