First thing in the morning, after getting my cup of coffee, I take a few minutes to quiet my mind. And I sit in that quiet.
I find that when I make the time to center myself like this, I am prepared and ready to take on the day with a clear and present mindset. Sometimes it’s a meditation-type quiet, other times it’s a visualization-type thing. The label doesn’t really matter, it’s just about sitting in the stillness and seeing what comes out. Intuition is usually speaking to us. But we need to be quiet to hear that voice inside us and what it’s trying to tell us.
This morning, I let my thoughts wander to a special place I love and have visited often over many years.
There is a creek there that I loved to sit next to, watching the water flow. Memories of my kids skipping rocks years ago, hummingbirds flitting about. The soothing sounds of flowing water. It’s just a special and wonderful place for me. Whenever I think about it, it gives me a sense of calming relaxation and joy.
I’ve heard that when meditating, if a thought comes up, one should just let it go. Thoughts will pop in and often. Some people refer to the constant thoughts coming in as monkey-mind. It seems uncontrollable and because our brains are constantly working we can’t exactly just shut them down.
Sometimes we may feel that’s a problem.
But, one of the things that I always remember about that creek, are the boulders and rocks in the middle, all along the way. They don’t stop the water. It’s not a problem – the water finds its way around and just keeps flowing.
We can think of these thoughts popping up in our minds as those rocks in the creek. The water just flows around them and continues on.
It dawned on me that the flow is always happening.
I can get stopped up and frustrated by the thoughts that pop up as I’m trying to clear my mind. Or I can just let them go and flow past as the creek does.
In a broader sense, we can apply this same process to our lives as well.
There are things that will get in our way. Life problems and issues come up and feel like rocks and big boulders that slow our progress, or even block our path altogether. Rather than get upset and frustrated, we can remind ourselves the flow is still always there.
By staying in that state of mind, we can be flexible and approach obstacles not as problems, but as something to work around and find alternative, and sometimes…maybe most times, even better ways to continue downstream on the path of our desired direction.
