I Died With My Eyes Open

Dear Humans,

Today I would like to return to your awareness an aspect of the Human condition that ultimately succumbs to the biological experience we call life. Yes, death seems inevitable and inescapable. There are those who appear to cheat it at times but sooner or later we are all paid a visit by that rather grim-looking, cloaked entity who gestures with a scythe.

When that mythical bony hand comes knocking, there will be few places to run and hide. The idea of venturing into the unknown can be a terrifying proposition for us— and there's certainly no greater unknown than what waits on the other side. The tendency to fear death is perfectly natural, perhaps even necessary. Yes, death is to be avoided at all costs, and yet we find ourselves fascinated by this mysterious and most prodigious of all eventualities.

In the following paragraphs I intend to die. Yep- that's right, I'm going to choke on a Giuliano jalapeno-stuffed olive and pass over the great divide into the ever after. I'll tell you all the things I see and feel along the way. Now mind you, this is only a simulation, as I am in no particular hurry to experience the real deal. But I've imagined such a moment a good number of times, and so in this sense it's just another day for me.

Last Breath

"An olive of all things," I think to myself as I asphyxiate. It would have been considerably better and wiser to have chewed it rather than inhale it. But they tasted so good and I got a little carried away. If provided the opportunity to reconsider my lackadaisical attention to chewing and swallowing, I certainly would now seek that option. No such choice is on the table. Seems I remember a variation of the Heimlich maneuver that could be administered in a lonely and dire circumstance such as this. Still thinking there's a chance my olive will pop back out.

Well that's the pits. There's genuine urgency now. The adrenaline is pumping, which doesn’t seem to help my current situation whatsoever. This thing is not going to pop out and so I find myself in a frenzied state of panic, fear and dizziness. The struggle is initially intense, but before too long I feel my body hitting the floor and staring up toward the ceiling. I never noticed that cobweb in the corner before. Someone should really take care of that.

At the edge of consciousness I find that I'm now no longer concerned for me but how others will be affected. I sure don't want to upset anyone, but it would seem my fate is sealed— I'm a goner. I've walked away from serious car wrecks and even survived picking a fight with someone twice my size. I suppose either one would have offered a more spectacular exit. But an olive— yes, that delicious little olive, would ultimately spell my demise. I find the irony both terrifying and amusing. As I slip into unconsciousness I am finally relieved of my struggle.
   
The Light

I thought it was mostly hype, but sure enough I'm now staring into a bright white light. I can't seem to take my eyes off of it. It is beautiful beyond words and so welcoming. I sense I'm between two worlds, yet my mind still functions as though I'm having a living Human experience. I'm no longer tethered to the ground like before. I'm free to float about and observe the world from this vantage. I'm not really aware that I'm dead, because all this seems so perfectly natural and familiar to me. That’s when I look down and notice myself looking back up at me. Damn— I died with my eyes open!

I'll tell you now that's not what I wanted. Ever since I was a little kid I thought how creepy it would be to see a dead person with their eyes still open. And yet there I am, dead and blue with Marty Feldman-like, bulging peepers. I try to reach down to close them but my hand can’t seem to move anything. I'm a ghost. I find being a ghost rather interesting and not nearly as spooky as I thought it would be. But I'm still concerned about my loved ones. I don't want them to discover me like this; bulging eyes and an olive in my windpipe. Sheesh!

Little Help from My Friends

I'm not alone. There are others like me— in the between states of here and there. Some have been around for ages, although time is not the same ticking clock that we know of. We’re all connected in an almost telepathic way and none of this is surprising to me. What's odd is that heavy, fleshy container I used to occupy. Without spirit, it just doesn't hold my appearance anymore. Just a body now, a shell of my former existence- and those eyes- yikes!

I'm acutely aware of my energetic state. I'm not sure what's holding my consciousness together, as I'm fully capable of clear and independent thought. There are many familiar faces here to greet me. I laugh because this part of the experience seems rather stereotypical. I think to myself how cliché and perfect all this is. But it's nothing like a family reunion where there's always a residual tension just below the waterline. This is a real reunion fully expressed in the light of unconditional love, knowing and compassion. And there's a connectedness with all things big and small. Everything has a resonance that somehow speaks to me. This is a blissful state, and indeed a heavenly place to call home. At the moment I can't even fathom why I would ever choose to be among the living. There is simply no comparison.

This previously forgotten realm in the afterlife seems far more real than the sensation of living. Everything has come back to me in a flash. It's almost like I never left. If one has ever had the experience of returning to a job after being away for a while and jumping right back in without missing a beat— well, that might begin to describe what I'm feeling in this space called death. Yes, it is indeed a transition or metamorphosis, but nothing ever dies.

There is still a window open for me to return to my former life, although there would be significant challenges I would have to face. The choice is mine. I opt out. I don't want to go back to that world. Truth is I didn't really care much for those things I read in the news. I don't like war and all those evil machinations. No thanks, I'll stay. It's at that moment someone, somehow, finds a way to close my eyes. Whew! What a relief.
   
Life is But a Dream

Have you ever been sleeping and missed being awake? Not likely. Have you ever been so tired and exhausted that all you could think about was going to bed? -Very likely. The physical state of sleeping can be maintained by the body for months and even years. People in comas can survive literally into old age. On the other hand, if one were to try staying awake and conscious for much more than three days they would likely become delusional and possibly even die. In this sense, being in a deep state of sleep seems more natural for the body than remaining continually awake.

But where I feel I am right now is somewhere between that state of awake and asleep. This is the node that best captures the feeling that surrounds me. It's the twilight and the dawn— it's the end of all that was and the beginning of what will be. It's all rolled together into one big, cosmic, vegetarian burrito for me to eat at my leisure. And it tastes right and it tastes good.

There is not a sense of higher and lower orders of spiritual evolution. It's clear that all energies have a place that is important and significant. There is no ridicule or praise for one's prior beliefs, or lack of belief for that matter. All of that now seems insignificant to me as I stand in awe of the greater picture. I sense what some would call the Christ Light, but I do not witness His personification. It seems the Light speaks to me in a way that I can understand. It is the Light of love and it's within us all. In my heaven, we are not to be hoodwinked, embarrassed or judged. We are unbridled expressions resuming our truer form.

Gone to the Moon

One thing that is clear to me is that this "heavenly" state is not superior to our living state. It's really a matter of perspective. It doesn’t pose the same limitations upon us at the physical level because there is no physical level. A body of flesh does not have the architecture to embrace the level of energy I’m picking up on the other side. If we tried, the body would explode. So there must be a tradeoff. But that is not to belittle our physical state. This state is beautiful in its own way. We can find heaven in this state or we can live in hell, if that is our choosing.

I wish I could tell the living how easy it is to do things and go places while in a physical body. Being dead is making all this abundantly clear. For instance, when was the last time you were on the moon? My spiritual body is screaming out to you, the living, and wondering why you don't go. You see, we can visit the moon anytime we like, just not so much in the physical way. As for me, I like to lie down along the terminus were shadow meets the light. My feet get nice and toasty while my head freezes. Thank goodness it's my spiritual body. It can handle such extremes. I listen to the moon speak and watch the Earth rise. I wish you could be there to experience it too. To watch you observe such a thing is more enjoyable to me than the effect of my own observation.

But people will tell you it's all imaginary. It's in your head, they'll say. To them I ask if a thought is energy. If it's energy, then is it not real? What if this energy is not confined to just the physical brain? What if it can transmit like some kind of quantum radio device and take you wherever you want to go? Well it can, and it does, so there!

You're being here took a lot of effort from a lot of people who love you very much. You are valuable and have great purpose. I am grateful for your being here and I wish I could express to you just how important your role is. But I'm sort of dead right now. Yes, we are held in place in this physical world and yet, do we not hold someone in place when we hug them? The hug doesn't last and all which you see around you is temporary and fleeting. Enjoy this present moment.
   
Heaven's Gate

Dying with my eyes open is perfectly fine as a metaphor but maybe not so much in the literal sense. When I truly leave this world I will want to say I was awake and aware and conscious of those things within and around me. I was able to see through this artificial construct we sometimes call the matrix and that I was able to rise above it. Perhaps my being here was largely about this experience and the ensuing internal struggle that did follow.

Did you notice I never quite made it through heaven's gate? I saw someone who could pass for Peter, but I was a little too shy to approach him. I found myself instead noticing this limbo land between both worlds. This is an important transitional stage where we drop off our remaining baggage and slowly acclimate to moving on. I had always put a toe in the pool before jumping in. I make no exception here. I want to make sure my affairs are in order and that the living are ready and willing to let me go. If they don't, I'll probably come down and haunt them until they do. There are some people up here that are kind of into that and have made it into a full time job.

From where I stand, I am now privy to knowing that what's ahead is so beautiful, perfect and pure that I don't want to contaminate it in any way. The proverbial “gate” is open to everyone and yet I'm stricken with the feeling of unworthiness. I'm simply not good enough to enter that light. Well fine, they say. If you want to sit around and mope about it you can. You're welcome to flog yourself to your hearts content. Do you see why we shouldn't carry so much baggage with us? Anyway, the gate is open 24/7 just like my favorite diner. All we really need to do is step in, self-incrimination notwithstanding.

What it might be like past this point I haven’t a clue. It's beyond anyone’s comprehension. This may be why we are so steeped in amnesia. We may not have a choice in the matter. Our living, organic brains may be unable to process what is beyond those gates. If we had any inkling, it is quite possible that we could not function in the physical world. It would literally blow our minds. We would be so wrecked with homesickness and confusion that a good many of us might just jump off the first available bridge. It is my sense that we chose to be here and to be here largely on our own terms. The amnesia was the one non-negotiable (and essential) part of the package.

As we live from day to day our propensity to be fearful of the unknown can be easily exploited. There are religious constructs that will leverage this fear. They will have you believe that your fate is somehow in their hands and contingent on their ideology. I will not engage with those who are austere and belligerent in this arena. What nerve some people have. Might some be charlatans who don these robes? To think they know better than you or I as they shake their finger of judgment and indignation. I love that person who wags their finger. But I know they know not— and I fear that they fear much.

Final Thought

Take a moment and feel your energetic self. Feel how it is somewhat separate from your physical body. If you don't sense it right away, keep trying. You'll eventually become very aware of being aware. It's really not much of a jump from there to feel that dividing line between the physical and spiritual worlds.

The physical body is the condensate, solidified expression of our spiritual being. Our car fits perfectly in this garage. Here we are provided the opportunity to observe ourselves and comb our hair in a mirror. Kind of a big deal, really. We don't wish to be anyone else because who we are is what we are. So should we decide to come back again and walk the Earth once more, we will bear a striking resemblance to what we see right now. A gender change is perfectly within the realm of possibility. Let’s not forget, men do have nipples. Go figure.

Our every instinct promotes self-preservation. This is by design. But it seems to me that if we really knew the experience that awaits us, we just might find ourselves overly ambitious to get there. We came into this world with a lot of help and the help will be there when it's our rightful time to leave. I sense with great certainty that we are never alone, and we are loved so very, very much. Oh yes, and I also sense the importance of chewing our food slowly and carefully before swallowing.
 

Article originally published at:
http://www.rattlereport.com/rattleberry/2014/i-died-with-my-eyes-open
This content may be freely reproduced in digital form, provided this and all original links are included.

Basic Psychic Protection

Basic psychic protection acts as an energy that wraps around us. The purpose of this energy is ultimately to block out all intrusive or malicious vibrations that come from other sources. As one begins to practice magic or any psychic art, their awareness of the world’s energies increases greatly. With this newfound sensitivity comes exposure to a new realm of distractions. Astral entities may be attracted to your increased energy or activities. Other practitioners may notice you as well. Not all of these personalities may wish you harm, but it is best to be prepared with psychic protection, just in case.
Bubble Technique
The most basic technique for protecting oneself magically is to simply imagine yourself inside a ball of white light that turns away any energy before it can touch you. When you visualize this ball of light around you, you want to make sure it appears opaque and solid in your mind’s eye. This bubble should extend about a foot above your head and at least 6 inches below your feet. It doesn’t have to be a perfect sphere; just make it fit around your body in whatever shape seems most comfortable or appropriate. You want to enforce the energy in the areas above and below to be just as strong as the areas in front and behind you. Rest assured that even after you come out of your concentrated state, this bubble will move with you without hindrance. Any vibrations that touch it will simply pass over and around your shield like the wind moving around a mountain. In the rare circumstance that your shield comes up against someone else’s, it will bend to compensate, but not break, much like two balloons pressing together. You need to hold the image of an impenetrable force field in your mind for at least a good solid minute or two, before returning to your everyday life.
Mummy Technique
The visualizing of specific shapes forming around your body piece by piece adds focus and resolve to your psychic protection, and this is the basis of the mummy technique. Begin by creating the image of a ball of white light glowing just above your head where the crown chakra or higher-self psychic center is located. Focus on the energy here, willing its intensity to increase. Visualize white light sweeping down from this powerful sphere in the shape of a wide ribbon that begins to wrap around your head. You may want to leave some space between the energy ribbons and your physical body, perhaps 3-4 inches. Have the ribbon continue to wrap around your head, overlapping itself and creating a solid sheet that surrounds your head in protective energy. Don’t stop at the head though. Let the ribbon continue to spin around your shoulders, torso, hips, legs all the way down to the feet, making sure to cover every spot so that you are entirely and safely wrapped. Once you’ve worked your way down to your feet, have it wrap underneath them, completing the blanket surrounding you. When you are completely wrapped, hold the image of what you just did in your mind for a few moments before opening your eyes. This exercise is a great way to improve your skills with energy manipulation while benefiting yourself.
Burning Flame
The Burning Flame is best used in situations that may be dangerous or that you require a great amount of psychic protection over a short period of time. If you are entering a place/meeting/situation with a terrible amount of negativity you can perform this technique. Some people visualize their shields as a fire surrounding them at all times which is fine, although the method presented here is geared toward an emergency situation or on a temporary basis since it uses high amounts of energy.
Stand perfectly upright with your legs together and your arms flat against your side. Go deep inside yourself to the center of your being. Approach all of this with a confident intensity, your mind focused on your need for protection. Find your center and know that in your center is an intense source of energy, the very energy that all your magical abilities come from. With your consciousness in this core of your being, create an eruption of energy within yourself. Like a volcano building up pressure, cause your energy to rise and expand from your center out. As the energy reaches the outside of your body have it burst into a blue flame that surrounds your body. The curved base of the flame should be at your feet and the tip of the flame above your head. The intense energy flame will burn any outside vibrations before they can reach you. This flame won’t harm you physically since it’s a spiritual flame, but it will stop any other spirit or energy from touching you. Once the flames surround you, try to keep part of your mind focused on it as you proceed through the situation you felt required extra psychic protection. Imagine more energy fanning the flames stronger and higher as you exhale.
As with any of these techniques, practicing first in a safe place is highly recommended.
Chakra Spin Protection
This powerful technique unites the chakras to create a shield fully embedded with all aspect of your will and energy. Begin by visualizing performing the Psychic Center Visualization as detailed in the Energy Techniques document. A quick rehash: Charge the crown chakra, and draw a line down to the 3rd eye chakra. Charge the 3rd eye before drawing a line to the throat. Charge and continue to the heart, charge this chakra and draw a line of white light to the solar plexus chakra. After charging the solar plexus you move to the sex chakra, charge it and then onto the root chakra. As mentioned before, this is an adaptation of the traditional chakra system to have a center between the two feet so draw one more line to the ground center and charge this area. Create two lines of light from this center that swoop to each side of you in an upward curve before connecting with the crown chakra above your head. Begin cycling your energy through the lines timed with your breathing.
Instead of stopping at this point, continue cycling but move your focus to the curved lines at your side. We want to move these two lines simultaneously clockwise so that they being to spin around the body. Let them put out energy as they continue to move faster and faster until their light forms a solid wall of energy that surrounds you. Spin this wall of energy around you for a few moments. When you feel ready, let the image of the chakras fade from your mind, and let the spinning motion end, but hold onto the image of all the energy the chakras surrounded you with.
How often and how long?
You should practice psychic protection techniques at least once a day until your body picks up the habit and begins to naturally reinforce your shields with energy. After a month or two you should be proficient enough that you only need to revisualize your shields once a week. If you find yourself in a particularly nasty situation where you need an extra amount of protection, feel free to shield yourself again even if you had done so earlier in the day. As you become more comfortable and skilled at these techniques you will find it possible to reinforce your shield with little concentration and even while you body is in motion or otherwise distracted.
Colors in Protection
Everyone likes to add a little color to his or her magic. When you give your energy it’s own color, you are personalizing it and making it easier for you to relate to. Some people are very firm in the belief that white energy is the purest and therefore is most powerful. Generally white and blue are the most commonly used colors for psychic protection. There may be something to this, but it is always best to listen to your gut. If you feel an urge to have a green shield, then go with it. You can always experiment by changing your shield’s color every week. If you find one shade or tone to be more effective than others, then stick with it. There are some generally accepted associations with each color that I’ll post on the Temple of Manannan at a later date.
Complex combinations of color can be used to create very strong protection. For example you could make a shield that starts as red at the top of your head and then slowly graduates to orange, yellow, green, blue and then purple when it finally reached your feet. Visualizing such a shield takes strong focus, and holding it this image in your mind’s eye as the day goes by can be challenging. Since the appearance of this shield requires much more effort, it is more strongly empowered by your will. Unusual patterns in shields can also aid you in psychic self-defense. Integrating a religious design or an occult symbol that represents protection can add extra strength and power.
Source

Good and Bad Leadership traits

Driven by experiences in different establishments especially, and most recently, in the pre-university educational field, I finally got around to addressing the issue of inadequate leadership in the workplace.

Put simply, a leader's job is to guide his employees through everyday tasks to reach, what usually is, a short term goal while developing them towards synergy, self reliance and creativity till his leading role rendered obsolete and unnecessary. That's when leaders move on to putting together and leading another team while old team members gain enough experience to become leaders in turn and so on.

Good and bad employees will always trust a good leader because they know that his sound decisions will benefit everyone in the end; however, bad leaders are untrustworthy, whether due to their inability to inspire or an inability to choose the correct path for the organization.

The most obvious and trusted way to measure leadership effectiveness is achievement of preset short medium and long range goals, and the work environment.

How does an employee experience leadership? They experience it through the support provided by management and the quality of this support dictates the quality of the employee's work. The support an employee gets comes in two intertwined forms that we may call: tangible and intangible.

Tangible support usually consists of training, tools, material, parts, discipline, direction, procedures, rules, technical advice, documentation, information and planning.
Intangible support is usually practiced and reflected in: confidence, morale, trust, respect, relatedness (or purpose), autonomy, ownership, engagement and empowerment.

Now we can get more specific in defining good and bad leadership in the workplace.

Good Leadership

Everyone knows that in order to produce the best products and services in the marketplace, all employees must treat their work and their customers with great respect and care. Good leadership requires treating employees (or internal customers) with great respect and care. The better the respect and caring, the better the outcome.

Treat employees as if they are very important and valuable and you will cause them to treat their work, customers, peers and management this way. They will follow your lead.

What then characterizes good (or great!) leadership?

• Listening to your employees including subordinate managers/supervisors and addressing their complaints, suggestions, concerns, and personal issues in the workplace
• Coaching people when necessary to raise them to a higher standard
• Allowing all employees to put in their two cents
• Actually trusting them to do the work their way
• Not giving orders or setting visions, goals and objectives, but instead soliciting this from employees so that everyone is fully involved in how the organization will be successful
• Providing direction when needed to ensure that everyone is on the same page (the one they devised)

A good leader communicates the vision that was set by all. If it is a vision of little interest, then another one must be found.
Every person wants to be heard and respected. Everyone has something to contribute. Listening and responding respectfully makes it worthwhile for employees to apply 100% of their brainpower on their work thus unleashing their full potential of creativity, innovation and productivity and making them highly motivated, committed and productive. All of this gives them very high morale, enables them to take great pride in their work and then they will literally love to come to work. Good leadership multiplies whatever creativity, innovation and productivity top management has by whatever number of employees they have.

So, what bad leadership?

Bad Leadership

Bad leadership is characterized by attempting to control employees through orders, policies, rules, goals, targets, reports, visions, bureaucracy, and changes all designed to almost force employees to work and to create and deliver what management considers to be satisfactory products and services. In this mode, management on its own decides what to do, when to do it, and how to do it and listens only nonchalantly, if they listen at all, to what employees have to say.

What characterizes bad leadership?

• Dishing out orders, policies, rules, goals, targets, reports, visions and changes to force employees to work the way management believes it should be done.
• Failing to listen or only perfunctorily listening to complaints and suggestions.
• Trying to motivate employees.
• Exhibiting the “Do as I say, not as I do” mentality
• Providing inadequate support
• Withholding information
• Treating employees as if they don’t want to do a better job, don’t care about their work, don’t want to accept responsibility, or don’t really want to work.
• Treating them as if they are lucky to have the job
• Being afraid to discipline and never disciplining anyone
• Staying in your office or in meetings at your level or above
• Us versus them mentality—“Why aren't they performing better?”— “What’s wrong with that person? Why don’t they know their job? They should know their job.”

These actions lead employees to believe that management disrespects them and does not care a whit for them. It also puts employees in the state of having to guess what management wants and management must be right about everything because no one else is allowed to make decisions. Bad leadership shuts off the natural creativity, innovation, and productivity of each employee and slowly but surely demotivates and demoralizes them. With the “I know better than you” and the “be quiet and listen to me” mentality often projected from management, the majority will act like robots waiting for instructions, even if that is not what management intended.

7 Ways to Know When Your Mind is Trying to Control Your Life

“I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Our mind is a funny thing. On the one hand, it’s awesome. But on the other, it can pulverize us more quickly and ruthlessly than anything else.

Our mind is inherently scared. That’s its job, to be cautious; to keep us alive, to have us cross roads safely, and not get eaten by a lion. But left unchecked, it can become paralyzed with fear and meaner than a cornered crocodile.

And it’s incredibly bossy.

The tendency of the mind to want to control is so strong and so habitual that we often don’t realize the myriad of times it tries to push our inner wisdom and natural sense of ease and love aside.

The bad news is there is no book or course that will change the nature of our mind; the good news—we don’t have to. The problem isn’t our mind, but how we use it.

We feel anxious, fearful, sad, or resentful when we give our mind too much power, when we follow all of its dopey ideas against our better judgment.

Here’s how to spot when your mind is trying to take over.

1. When you ignore your natural inclination.

Your mind is smart. Not wise smart, but computer smart.

Your mind isn’t into all that woolly intuition jazz. It wants facts. It likes making calculations. Running the odds.

Say you have a thought to call a friend you haven’t thought of in years. But then your mind says, “Don’t be silly. He’s probably not home. He won’t remember me.”

So you don’t call.

But have you ever followed one of those inclinations and then looked back and seen, wow, look at everything that happened after?

And what about decisions like what to do with your life? The logical way is listen to experts or copy what works for other people. Your mind loves this.

This is why we ignore the little voice that says, “You should be a writer,” and choose instead to study statistics, because there are plenty of jobs for statisticians. Or we train to be a dancer because we’re “good at that.”

Except you aren’t “other people.” And experts aren’t as expert about you as you are. And just because you’re “good at something” doesn’t mean it’s what you want to do.

2. When you want to say “no” but you end up saying “yes.”

Do you have trouble saying “no”?

I used to. I didn’t even see it as a serious option until I was age twenty-three and so strung out from months of overdoing that I went for five nights without sleep in the middle of finals.

It was messy.

I thought there were rules more important than my deep desire not to do something. Rules like be a good friend, be a good student, go to lots of parties.

It took me months to recover.

This is, of course, a total mind thing. Your mind wants to be liked and it thinks everything is important.

Your mind doesn’t realize that saying “no” isn’t a big deal, or even a medium deal. Or that your intuition is where wisdom lies.

Not only is it your right to do as you genuinely desire, but it benefits everyone when you do.

I was watching An Angel at My Table recently, based on the autobiography of Janet Frame, one of New Zealand’s favorite authors. Janet spent eight years in a psychiatric hospital, had two hundred electroshock treatments, and narrowly escaped a lobotomy only to learn years later that she wasn’t unwell; she just didn’t like being very social, and if she did what she felt like she was fine.

3. When you constantly text or check your phone or email, or Facebook status.

I love the Internet and email and reading comments on my blog. Just love it. What an awesome world we live in.

But often I feel off balance because of it. Or rather, because of how I use it.

And it’s not like I don’t know why I get so hooked on it. I do. I’m looking for approval.

The need for approval goes deep. Not only is it a natural trait of the mind, it’s entrenched by our schooling system.

But it’s dangerous. It keeps you distracted from the present moment and trains you to care when people disapprove. Which they will.

The modern hyper-connected world is addictive. To the mind it’s like candy.  

So what’s the answer? Give it all up?

Personally, heck no. But setting limits and removing temptation keeps things in check.

4. When you think, “It’s all very well for them.”

Have you ever heard an inspirational story and thought, “It’s all very well for him, he came from a rowing family. It’s easy for him to row the Northwest Passage.”

You see it all the time and it’s a classic case of your mind resisting change, worried you’ll want to make some leap of your own.

Take Elizabeth Gilbert and her book, Eat, Pray, Love.

It wasn’t a story about traveling around the world. Not really. It was about survival and courage and how one woman used the resources she had to save herself.

Thinking, as a few did, that it’s all very well for her she could afford to travel around the world is missing the point.

We all have the ability to get up off our metaphorical bathroom floor. And we all have our own unique set of resources to help us. When your mind is quickly dismissive and judgmental, it’s trying to stop you from seeing this. 

5. When you think repetitive, worrying thoughts.

Getting OCD about washing your hands, turning off the stove, or locking the door before you leave is your safety-officer mind working overtime.

While the worry feels real and overwhelming, there’s no reality to it.

Don’t be pushed around by your mind. Thank your mind but tell it you’ll take it from here. Allow one double-check or hand wash. Now leave.

The trick is ignoring the unpleasant thoughts while knowing a bunch of more pleasant ones will be along shortly. 

6. When you try and control someone else.

Have you ever thought you knew better than someone else and tried to get them to do things your way?

Just like dozens of times a day, right?

Your mind is certain you have to intervene. You don’t. Your mind thinks it knows best. It doesn’t.

Trying to control other people, in small and big matters, is not only annoying and disrespectful; it stops the flow of life. You miss out.

I don’t know how many times I’ve experienced a profound and unexpected pleasure after I’ve ignored the urge to butt in.

7. When you feel inadequate for being “too negative.”

We’re inundated with messages telling us we should be grateful and positive and the like. They’re well meaning, but ultimately unhelpful.

Because here’s the catch.

Your mind regards these ideas as rules and is critical when you fail, as you invariably will. Because seriously, who’s positive or grateful all the time?

A few years ago a friend told me I was a negative person.

My response: “Okay, so how do I change that.”

“You don’t,” he said, “You probably won’t always be this way. It’s just how you are right now.”

Whenever you feel inadequate, this is your mind pushing you to “follow the rules.” It’s well intentioned, but misguided.

Accepting how you are, no matter how you are, is the most loving and genuinely positive thing you can do.

And yes, this applies to when you’re being controlling.

It’s your mind’s nature to seek control. It’s neither a good or bad thing, it just is. Sometimes you’ll succumb, other times you won’t. And it’s all perfectly okay.

From Tiny Buddah