My mind spins in thought. There are few rare precious moments in my life when I experience a silenced mind (despite my best efforts to meditate). I analyze, I cross-reference, I double-check. It’s thought after thought after thought. I move from one perspective to another in an attempt to gain full understanding on each and every detail. My analytical mind has served me well, but I am also aware of how exhausting it can be.
The other day I was having a conversation with a beautiful soul. I was explaining to him that I was struggling with resolving a values conflict. My mind was loving the intense philosophical thoughts that were racing through it. “I value truth… And I value compassion… And there are times when these two values compete and even clash… There are times in which I must choose one over the other…when, how, what if… ” And so on and so on … spins the endless thoughts.
We were both pretending it was a conversation, but both knowing only one of us was jabbering on. Finally, when I had almost exhausted my thought process, he gently said “Kathy sometimes you just need to chill your thoughts out. Stop thinking so much and just let it be”.
In that moment I experience the strange sensation of simaultaneously hating and loving the words that escaped his lips. I couldn’t help but laugh. He was right. My mind was desperately trying to determine future responses to each and every possible path…I was trying to think my life again instead of living it.
This became another opportunity for me to appreciate my old habits still exist and that I am learning, changing … each thought, each breath, each moment… and for a brief moment my mind was silent!
© Kathy Bazinet 2014