Instant Mindfulness
For frightening and isolated times… here’s a simple way to the calm behind the storm. I can’t say for you, but at times like these I want something that works now – even for the likes of me. Nothing difficult. Here’s my favourite – having spent over 70 years learning what works.
There’s nothing wrong with my having fear and anxiety. Anyone who doesn’t these days is two slices short of a sandwich. Stay with me on this. I said I have fear and anxiety. The empty sky has storms. They come, and they go. The weather passes: beautiful sunny days, grim nasty ones… the sky is space for them all to happen in.
I’m like the sky. See if you are too. Try this (tip – it only works if you actually try it):
Look in a mirror. See an ageing person? Wrinkles? Now see what you’re like without the mirror. Don’t think about it, just look. Do you see an ageing person where you are, looking out of two holes in a meatball?
OUTSIDE story: you look like an ageing person. INSIDE story: right here, right now it’s easy to see that at home where you are you are clear space for everything to come and go in like the weather in the clear sky. No wrinkles. No meatball. It’s that simple.
You don’t have to be clever to see this or try to make anything happen. Just let yourself notice how safe you already are. Fears, joys, colours, thoughts… they come and go in you like the weather – and your open sky at home, right where you are right now, stays clear. All the thoughts that fear storms are made of, you can let them blow through like the rest of the weather. If there’s something you can actually and practically do about a worry, do it. Otherwise try staying home with your inside story, with who you really are, and let it the answers come.
This is a powerful trick, but it only works when you look right now at what it’s like to be at home where you really are. The idea of it does nothing. Remembering it does nothing. Actually noticing what you’re looking out of does it all – and you can do that any time you want to – and you can’t do it wrong! No wrinkles where you are, no meatball to peek out of through two little windows. Just clear, calm, ageless space for all the fears and joys and storms and sunshine to come and go. The eye of the storm. Instant mindfulness.
If you’d like more about this, let us know.
