Resting Your Mind

The distractions are many and constant.

No longer is the frenzied pitch intended to alert us to start or stop something – it is a constant reminder of the purported threat to our very lives.

In the droning of background noise …. of television, laptops, tablets and phones; of YouTube, podcasts, live reporting on unfolding events or commentators’ views of these events… it is easy to forget in the frenzy of external stimulation that we have an internal world. That same internal world is shaping our responses to these external agitations.

Where are you?

How do you find yourSelf in the frenzy of perpetual stimulation intended to cause you to abandon that Self to the story of the external world… as told by so many others; so many who are not you.

How do we find ourselves… inside, where we live… despite the enormous pressure to focus our attention outside where the story… where the provocation for deep fear for our very survival… is at its highest volume and relentless in its pursuit? Constantly bathed in that which agitates…. like sandpaper moving over already-sunburned skin.

How do I find the place inside myself where the voice I listen to is calm… steady… simple… peaceful.. and speaks volumes without words?

It matters not one iota if anyone else can hear that voice. It is not intended to hold sway over any other – it is intended to lead me, back to mySelf.

Silence. Emptynenss. Nothing. An oasis of calm in the blender-swirl of a tumultuous world.

Imagine if you were to turn it all off. Turn off the tv. Turn off your phone. Turn off your computers. Turn off all alerts and reminders.

Silence all technology. And for the very brave, unplug from the internet.

Stand… alone, without the tribal pressures to conform… as a single One… in the stillness of your room. Disconnected. Unplugged.

Notice what happens to your body… inside, where you live. Notice how foreign it feels to be alone, with your Self. To be without the strange reassurance of external cues… as if the cacophony of sound is evidence that you’re still OK. How unusual it is to focus all of your attention on the inside.

Notice the vibrations in your chest… in the extremities of your arms and legs, hands and feet.

Notice the quivering as the inside of you begins to uncurl itself from the fetal position…. no longer assaulted by the external noise of everything else!… slowly trusting the open space to stay open… to remain available to its expansion.

In that slow… halting… unsure movement, something familiar begins to emerge. A memory of ‘home’. A recognition of a deeper breath… and the embrace of a too-long-forgotten stillness.

Every day… perhaps for one minute, at first. And then, one minute, a few times a day. And then, five minutes. And soon, the draw becomes greater than the agitation.

The trek home need not be arduous. In truth, it can be all that the outside does not offer. It can be easy. And quiet. And the call to a deeper breath.

Inside… where you live… the opportunity always awaits. Inside, there is no fear. There is no panic. There is no confusion.

Inside? Outside? Perhaps it is less about which is ‘real’ and much more about: which one offers a sense of resourcefulness? Of resilience? Of clarity? Of a moment of calm.

Which one calls to a belief in your own resilience… your own resourcefulness… your own deep knowing and the innate, intuitive ability to choose from that?

Finding yourSelf is possible… and only you can do it.

Turn off the outside channels that relentlessly feed you the dictum of chaos and fear.

Turn inward… even if just for a moment… and rest.