everything flows
How to relax, trust and let go
When a significant event occurs, the mind races to take a picture of the moment and keeps going over it again and again, it doesn’t matter if what happened was positive or not, in a relationship, or at place in time, and that recitation repeats until the person experiencing this puts a stop to it.
To experience change, one must muster the courage to become conscious of the unconscious thoughts, emotions and feelings that an event might have roused within them.
By accepting change, one let’s go of pent up emotions, that although might have been useful for a moment, no longer serve them in the present moment.
Change is the process of admitting to oneself that indeed many possibilities exist lie ahead of past events, and taking the next step to empty the mind of pre-conceived notions, embracing the beginners mind and charting a new course of action.
This is accepting that everything flows, living forwards, learning from both triumphs and mistakes of yesterday to be better today.
It was Shunryu Suzuki a Sōtō Zen monk and teacher who said it best that “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind, they are few”
One who accepts the impermanence of life, suffers less and attracts more opportunities for growth and development.
You are not your thoughts
Imagine a still body of water, perhaps a pond. If you were to toss a pebble at the body of water, that’ll cause ripples to form and spread to the corners of the water bed.
The same is true of the thoughts we admit in our minds; thoughts cause emotions and feelings to rise to the surface. If think positive thoughts, that’ll reinforce in your body good sensations, and vice versa for negative thinking and the corresponding emotions in the body; the onus is on you to determine your own success or failure by the thoughts you give admission to.
The running community has a popular saying that “Never trust the first mile” and, at first glance it sounds like solid advice on grit and determination but beyond that, you start to see the need “for your body to warm up; your heart rate to rise, blood (and oxygen) to start flowing to your working muscles, and your range of motion to increase.”
In the time it takes to get warmed up, it’s natural that your thoughts drift to some far off place, real change comes when you train your mind to observe thoughts as they come and go; to visualise your thoughts as one would perceive cars streaming along, if they were standing or sitting by a bus stop.
What happens if one holds on too tightly
In one of Jesus’s teachings he tells the “parable of the talents”, in Matthew 25:14–30. A master who was leaving his house to travel, before leaving, entrusted his property to his servants. According to the abilities of each man, one servant received five talents, the second had received two, and the third received only one.
When the master returned from his travels and asked the servants to account, each one of them returned a profit, save for the servant who received one talent, and they had this to say for themselves.
“…’master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. here you have what is yours.’ ”
When I reflect on the parable, I see the servant that received the one talent as someone who let fear, and labels paralyse them into inaction. They probably indulged fearful thinking and that cascaded into a series of doubtful indulgence and in the end all they could do was bury their talent, return zero profit, and to add salt to injury call their master names.
Not good.
I think fearless is having fears but jumping anyway — Taylor Swift
What happens when one lets go to relax and chill
Heraclitus and his doctrine of panta rhei (Everything Flows) was famous for his insistence on ever-present change as being the fundamental essence of the universe. He is famously quoted as saying:
No man steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
A river is never the same from one moment to the next. The water is always flowing, changing its course, temperature, and even the debris it carries. Just the same way, everyday brings it’s own challenges and opportunities, one needs to be ready to effortlessly move through each moment with an eye on what’s in front and enough focus to accomplish what’s on their to do list.
The better one get’s at doing this, the less they insist that the world be a certain way on the way to becoming their full self, and they see the many possibilities that each day has to offer.
I wish for you a productive week, filled with peace, joy and a healthy dose of patience, always remember, we can all be more mindful — Silas ✌️
