Balance For The Mind And Body

Balance is so very important to our lives and yet it is easy to be knocked or pulled certain directions in life. Whether it is noise in our day, pains we must face or having to determine what our priorities are, we all are influenced by these things.

If you notice though, there are people who are able to stay the course. They know the route they need to sail and so nothing veers them off course.

Then, there are others that are tossed to and fro, as the waves of life batter their ship. The waves don't have to be very strong either. They hold on for dear life, hoping that only smooth waters are in the future. Yet, they forget that the wind not only propels them but it creates the waves. It is hard to have one without the other.

So how do we deal with life when it seems to be more in control with us as willing participants. Maybe if we stopped each day and gave ourselves a moment of pause, we would clear our minds to put our day in a different view. What if instead of trying to mask the pains we felt, we looked for the courage to allow them to speak their messages to us? What if we held our moments of quietness in the same regard and emphasis as we do for our busy moments?

Yes, it may be true that this could lead us to changes in our lives. It may push us to rethink our priorities in any given day. It all depends of course, on what gets our attention in our day and what we choose for our lives.

Our bodies send us messages through pain, when we fail to listen to them. Our lives send us discomfort, when we are stepping off into the edges of our path. When we run from our fears, questions of what we should do and moments of confusion hold us from embracing the courage that we need.

In the end, all the answers we need for our life can be found within us. While others may help us to discover our truth we hold inside of us, it is our self and our body that holds the answers. We will not find them anywhere else. It is up to each one of us to be open, to listen and to allow the messages and wisdom we hold, to come forth. All too often we stifle the message and curse the messenger.

It sounds so simple but sometimes fear makes us think we have a giant to conquer. However, if we stuck a tiny pin into the giant, it would deflate instantaneously.

May each of us examine our life and embrace our own messages as we find our courage to put the pin into the giant of our fears. May each of us not run and hide but fully embrace every little part of our lives and our bodies. For the more we become one with ourselves, the more united we are. So, when the winds of life blow on our sails, we will be strong and secure. We will be at one with our life and who we are as an evolving and growing consciousness.



*For more articles, check out the Mind Body Thoughts Blog

Broken Windows Or Openings

When I saw the picture that Marilyn Mott Brown posted on her Facebook page, I could not help but ask for permission to post her picture and write about it. (note: this picture is being used on my blog page per Marilyn's permission).

For most of us, if we had to write a paragraph about this picture and how it relates to our life, I'm sure each one of us would write something different. So let's do a quick exercise. Before you continue reading, why not write a paragraph about what this images means to you in your current life. And then when you do that, take a look at it and read what you wrote from an Observer's mindset. Now compare the two thoughts and contrast them. You might be amazed at the insights you receive from doing this and whatever you write is your truth. It is what you need to probably hear for your own life in this moment. It could be the next epic adventure in your own story book and be a life changing event or it might lead you to the next morsel of information that will help you move in the direction you need to go.

So before I share what it means to me, make sure you write your paragraph first and then come back and read what this means to me. Ok, are you writing? No cheating now. Write yours first.

Ok, if you did as directed and wrote something, please feel free to comment and share what you wrote. I'd feel honored as well as all my readers would to see the various insights. Who knows what I may learn as well from what you write. And what you wrote is just as valid as what I wrote. Please don't compare mine to yours. Each of our writings stands on its own.

So here's what I wrote: ..

The minute I saw this image, I thought - wow - what a story for how life sometimes looks. An old rustic shed with wood that shows every grain and fiber. It has weathered the storms of life and appears that even through the years, it may be leaning a little but it is still standing. The door is slightly ajar and may all most be off its hinges from the winds of time and the many times it has been opened. The tools and belongings just inside the windows are varied and act as if they were placed in that particular order for whatever reason which remains a mystery to the viewer of this picture. Two of the four opposing window pains have been knocked out as if the window was meant to be that way. The way Marilyn took this photo, it leaves so much of the image as a mystery. There is no way to know for sure exactly what is around the narrow view of the picture unless you were standing there. This gives possibility of so much more than what the picture shows.

And as I think about all of this, isn't this a good representation of life. We sometimes see all our faults just like an old shed barely standing there with the door hanging open and the windows broken out. Yet, we often fail to realize that we're still standing strong despite the winds and storms of time. We have the tools and responsibilities and pieces of our life organized in a way that works for us in that moment even if we have some broken out windows. And as we look through the broken out window panes, we stare in to the darkness of the shed, wondering what is in there and what we have not become aware of in our lives. It reminds us of how much we have not yet discovered. The narrow view of the pictures shows to me, that there is so much more about us than we can currently see and if the photographer moved just an inch it would reveal so much more. In many ways, that is how our own lives come to be, because if we saw everything in this moment, it would take away the excitement and possibility of what lies ahead. In addition, to see to much too quickly, it may overwhelm us as we would not be able to take it all in and understand it.

So for me, this picture says, look at the entire picture and see the beauty. Don't be concerned with each detail of fault that you can see but know that this shed has stood the test of time and through the open windows of my life, may I be reminded to look further into my life and discover all that there is. It is not about what I can currently see but how I can see this image in the context of my complete life.

Beliefs or Chains

I was recently at a seminar and got chatting with another participant. In the course of our conversation, he steered the chat around to the bible and the scriptures. I was a little shocked at first because I didn't see that coming. So anyway, we were discussing various topics and in a very emphatic and forceful manner, he said, "I don't believe that. The scriptures say that is wrong". While I don't want to get in to specifics of the conversation, we were talking about various healing modalities and enlightment concepts.

What struck me as odd though is that this person was here in this seminar to learn, just like I was. Yet, their beliefs were almost holding them back from even listening to what was being taught. Don't get me wrong here because people who have beliefs are valid and their beliefs can be valid. The part that caused me concern though was just how dead set against this person was to anything outside of his realm of learning or experience in life. Maybe he has something figured out that I don't have and maybe neither of us have anything figured out. Who knows? It may take until the end of our lives to know for sure.

So when do beliefs about something becomes chains that tie us down? Maybe one could suggest that they become chains when they allow ourselves to put limits on what we hear, listen, observe or attempt to learn. You just never know when someone is going to share something that may just be a major piece in the puzzle of learning for your life. Of course, if we immediately exclaim with force that we are opposed to anything different than how we view things, the piece of the puzzle may go on by and never come our way again.

One of the things that I found when I was paralyzed and breathing my last few breaths was that so much of what everyone worries about in life, really doesn't matter. Your perspective changes and priorities are different from that point forward. You tend to evaluate everything you were told or taught, trying to find ways to actually prove or disprove it. We are taught so many things in this world and especially in our own cultures. Yet, we often can not see through the fog to see the tree that stands in front of us. We have become so mesmerized by the fog or what we are bombarded with each day that the fog is what we hold on to as if it was our last breath.

Again, I'm not saying that what I have to share with others is the absolute truth. There are many things we do not know. Everyone has their own views and opinions which is often cloaked in the true fact of belief, but none of us truly know if these things are absolutes.

So I challenge each person reading this, to evaluate life from the standpoint of the observer. See all that it has to offer and try not to only see what it is you want to see. Try looking with clear vision into that which you don't want to see because in doing so, you may just discover much more than you already are aware of. Life has so much to offer and let's make the most out of each of our days and our experiences by embracing every tidbit of experience we can. Only then, do we have the hope of becoming all that we can be!