CARING FOR OUR MIND

Caring for our mind is like caring for our home.

The work is never really done. When you have fixed your broken oven, paint falls off the wall.

Just as you finished renovating one room, something else pops up.

But we don’t just abandon our house. When your toilet breaks, you don’t just ignore it.

When the light bulb goes off, you don’t just pretend it is not happening.

We inhabit it so we must care for it, love it, and accept all of it.

And that is how we should care for our mind.

Whatever you shame, deny, and push away is only going to get worse.

In one way or another, it will find a way to get your attention.

Of course, it is not all doom and gloom.

If you can tap into gratitude and grace, you see that it is rewarding you every day with warmth, beauty and joy.

In the words of the Buddha, “Pleasure and pain, gain and loss, praise and blame, fame and disrepute, they come and go like the wind. To be happy, rest like a great tree in the centre of them all.”

“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality” 
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca

This week’s arts experiment: THE WORRY BOBBLES

Actually doing this exercise, rather than just in your imagination, might unlock parts of your psyche that have been buried since your childhood.

Buy a bottle of bubbles. You can get in on Amazon at a low price.

Using a bottle of bubbles, think about anything that upsets you right now.

Blowing your concerns into the bubble as you blow into the bubble wand.

Picture the worry in the bubble and watch it drifts away.

When it pops, imagine your worry leaving you.

Continue blowing bubbles until you more feel relaxed than when you began.