Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Up way before dawn once again. Love this time of the day, everything is quiet. Great for meditation and reflection. Meditation has been tough lately, as my mind is really swirling with thoughts right now, and it’s harder than usual to shut them off. Remodeling the house, learning 25 songs for upcoming shows with Road Trip, another 50 songs to start playing with Random Maxx, keeping things rolling with my day job, posting three videos weekly, writing the weekly blog & newsletter, vocal lessons, yoga instruction & trying to find time to get that into my routine, a couple possible real estate purchases… and there you have it – thoughts all over the place, very hard to shut off. What am I forgetting? Did I tell the plumber about this? Was I supposed to get that done before the electrician comes? What key does Road Trip play that song in? I better put aside an hour on Monday before the 3pm appointment to get ready… etc, etc, etc… so some of my recent meditations have been just “running through the days ahead”, and not really what I’m looking for when I meditate. Those of us who meditate all have this problem at times I guess. For me, it’s one of the main reasons I do meditate. To calm those thoughts down. As an obsessive/compulsive person – the voice that narrates my life can get pretty loud and demanding. Do this, do that, better get this done, hurry up, don’t be late, you can do better than that, no time to goof off, and on and on. So I need to step back. Into the space where there are no thoughts. Maybe there are some people who can actually get to the space where they meld with God, or the Universe, or Love, or whatever you want to call it, but I think if you meditate enough you’ll at least get some glimpses of what that feels like. To be one with your Creator. And I know from past experience when I was able to meditate more, and for longer periods, you can get to a point where it becomes easier to reach that spot, and do it fairly quickly, if you keep at it. We can never shut our minds totally off, because even when you get to that point, you’re still in there somewhere having the experience. But today I just used a new mantra of “no thoughts, no thoughts”… and every time my mind went to something I may or may not need to think about I shut it down with “no thoughts”… and it really helped me get past the noise today. After repeating it for a while, it started morphing somewhat into “know thoughts”… like “no thoughts… no thoughts… no thoughts (know thoughts)… no thoughts”… and when I was done it seemed like a good idea – to really know what it is we fill our daily thoughts with. Because it’s within those thoughts that we create our lives. Are we filling them with joy? Life can hand us circumstances that don’t always make that so easy. For me, I need to be in touch with the part of us that resides behind our thoughts to make sure that where I’m heading, what I’m thinking, or doing, or who I’m spending time with, are people, places and things that bring joy to my life and the lives of those around me. You will know your thoughts better when you “no” your thoughts periodically.
