So, what have you been doing this summer? I’ve spent some recent time with family along the Mississippi Gulf Coast where the heat index wavered between 104 and 110 degrees F every single day. Nevertheless, it was good to be together and to practice some new things I have been learning with my brother especially. If your family is anything like mine, it is a great field for growing in real love or “non-possessive delight in the uniqueness of the other person.” During our time together, I was given the opportunity to consider just how much of my thinking is spent in memories of the past or in imaginings of the future and how that kind of thinking does not allow me to live well here and enjoy NOW—the present moment.
At the end of the day, everything is energy and our thoughts carry energy just like our feelings. We can allow our lives to become circumscribed by energetic vibrations that we really do not want to exist. If there is one thing quantum scientists have shown us is that every cell in our bodies vibrate and long-term low-vibrational thinking adversely affects our physical bodies.
Being a biochemist in another life, I decided to take on an experiment to become the observer of my thoughts as they occur. What I discovered kind of shocked me: I spent way more time judging, labeling, and categorizing what I saw instead of simply experiencing life—without judging it or labeling it or somehow making it about me. Whenever we are simply breathing in life as it is in the present moment, or (NOW as E. Tolle might say), we are available for love and joy to come rushing in to our experience of being alive. I even discovered that being present and simply breathing brought a smile to my face. How can thinking of no-thing cause me to smile? I don’t know…it just did.
The 2nd half of the experiment was to learn to simply remain in a state of listening awareness—taking a pause so-to-speak— between thoughts. Frankly, that worked out even better. I felt less anxious, stressed, or frustrated in the airports especially! So, it became possible to (gasp) enjoy myself no matter where I was, what was going on around me, or how someone else responded to me or failed to. I may not be able to do it all of the time, but at least I know that it is possible and can be done.
Now, that I’m back home, I feel like I am learning to enjoy living in the present moment without the need to interject low energy thoughts (what some call negative thinking) into the moment that simply IS. Overall, it has been a pretty darn good summer.
Be Blessed…and consider just listening!
Love,