Month: February 2019

Feeling Trains of Thought

Posted on by Anna

Imagine a really busy train terminal, with hundreds of trains leaving every minute on hundreds of tracks. You want to go somewhere but none of the trains turn out to have clear destinations. You hop on one, hoping it will take you where you want to go. You transfer to another train, and another, and another.

Our thoughts work like trains. We follow one train of thought, then another, and another, maybe staying with one for while, then hopping to another and another one again.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to distinguish where the train of thought is headed.

If we’re feeling a low mood, the train of thought is not optimal. If we’re feeling a high mood, the train of thought is healthy and headed directly to connection with our inner wisdom.

Our feelings are a perfect barometer for the quality of our thinking, so they’re all beneficial. There are no bad feelings. And they pass as quickly as the thoughts that created them.

The human brain is an infinitely busy thought train terminal, so there will always be a new train to ride, a new thought to feel, and a new experience we can create.

The Big Dreams

Posted on by Anna

This past week has surfaced a theme of dreams.

I tried a simple exercise: If you had enough money to do anything, what would you do? This year, in the next few months, this month, today?

I’d love to travel with my family – Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, France. We’d also find and buy a sailboat, maybe first do a bareboat charter in the Bahamas to get comfortable sailing with the kids. I’d get three massages per week. I’d hire someone to help me purge and sell most of our belongings. Then maybe more travel, or finally move to Europe.

But then what?

My husband knows his dream: buy a boat, ail around the world with his family, teach boat building to disadvantaged youth. All of which seem like great dreams to me.

But what’s my big dream? There are things I’ve wanted throughout my life – to be a doctor, to travel, to move to Europe, to be a well-adjusted human – but I wouldn’t quite call them Big Dreams.

Mel Robbins says your Big Dream is the thing you’re almost embarrassed to say out loud. The “promise you won’t laugh?” dream. People who don’t know their dream still have one, she says, but they’ve lost the connection to their heart that lets them listen to what they really want.

As a child, the notion of what I wanted wasn’t on the table. “What I want” was not part of the family culture. I know the voice is in me somewhere, and now I’m going to give it some room on my own table to be heard. I’m looking forward to finally hearing the big dream. I promise I won’t laugh.

You Are Not Your Thoughts

Posted on by Anna

You were born creative, resourceful, and whole.

You are innate health and wisdom.

You think thoughts, but you are not your thoughts.

You are the one who has thoughts.

You are not your thoughts.

You are already and always creative, resourceful, and whole.

You are innate health and wisdom.

Don’t Pick at Your Thoughts

Posted on by Anna

The quality of our thoughts creates the quality of our mood, and the quality of our mood amplifies the quality of our thoughts.

In a high mood, we see the infinite possibility and beautify in life. We are open, inspired, magnanimous, joyful, optimistic, flexible, resilient, effective, creative problem solvers. In a high mood, we focus on high quality thoughts, which engender a high mood, which brings even more high quality thoughts.

A low mood brings a sense of impossibility and helplessness. We are closed, stuck, fearful, irritable, accusatory, offended, angry, insecure, anxious, fragile, struggling. In a low mood, we hyperfocus on low quality thoughts, bringing our mood even lower.

The only thing that keeps us from a high mood with high quality thoughts is our own low quality thinking. Unfortunately, when we’re in a low mood, we tend to believe our thinking and feed its unhealthy fire.

If you notice you’re in a low mood, let your thoughts pass through your mind and dissolve. Analyzing them will only bring more low quality thoughts and perpetuate the mood.

You know not to pick your scabs – doing so would just make the injury worse. In the same way, picking at your thoughts will just make your mood worse.

If you wait for your low quality thoughts to clear, your mood will lift, you’ll feel open, and you’ll be much better equipped to experience life with ease.

When the Time Comes

Posted on by Anna

To live in this world
 
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
 
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it
go,
to let it go.

from “In Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver