Whenever it rains, I feel impelled to refresh my surroundings…..like overhauling the work area in which I write and read. Nature gets a cleasing, time for me to give the same to my surroundings. This morning was like that.
I got up, fixed a bucket of some cleaning solution and began to rain on the space where I work. But further, I decided to clean my mental surroundings as well. That’s right. My thoughts. As I sponge mopped the floors, I opened up my thoughts and began to dust and clean the stuff that’s been lingering around far too long. Stuff that’s made me feel indecisive, weak, and mentally unproductive.
And just like you gotta get on hands and knees sometimes to clean under the rugs or furniture, sometimes you gotta also dig deep into thought to give it an overhaul. You gotta come face to face with what’s stagnating you, keeping you down, or holding you in a point of indecision (or whatever other kinda low feeling you have).
Okay. So this morning I cleaned up the technology debate: keep the nano and just get a free phone upgrade or get the iphone.
I know I know…sounds like a simple debate.
Reality check: it’s been going on in thought for well over 8 months now.
I’m not kidding.
Gulp.
It was last fall that I purchased the nano simply cuz my old ipod (the first one) conked out. Actually, my first generation ipod conked out early 2007 but for about 7 months I toyed with finding a techno guru to fix it. So what did I use for portable music that whole time? My cd player. Yes, I know I know. Gasp. Gawk. Shock and awe. It’s true. I was the only woman jogger adorned with a white plastic pancake looking flying saucer seeming object playing an actual CD, 12 to 13 songs at best. Golly we become attached to carrying around our playlists and hundreds upon hundreds of song options, don’t we?! Almost unthinkable to jog any other way! I mean what if you decide amidst Enya’s or Loreena’s ballads you just gotta hear Journey’s Wheel in the Sky or Styxx’s Lorelei? And what if you opt out of that 70s decade to revisit your buds from college like Love and Rockets or the Church? What was I thinking limiting myself to the one CD at a time player?
Truth? I didn’t know which size ipod to get for this next one. I mean 3 years since the first one and now there’s nanos of all sizes and the 8 gig and 16 gig. I just didn’t know! So rather than go experiment, ask around or read reviews, I got mentally caught up in indecision and just did the easiest: nothing.
Note to reader: don’t ever think doing nothing solves anything. It doesn’t. It creates patterns and patterns of rumination. And just try to put the decision on the back burner. It’s not a done deal and it’s always boiling over in thought to remind you “hey, you, antequated awkward looking jogger woman over there. Ya ain’t done with me yet. I’m boiling over here and you gotta make a decision. So what’s it’s gonna be toots? Nano or 8gig? Make a decision already!”
(I tried just turning the burner down. Doesn’t work. Even sizzling, that indecision still cackles away and reminds you you’ve not decided yet!) My dad always taught me: indecision is still a decision and gets you nowhere. Thanks Dad. Time for me to finally learn this I think. 🙂
So here I was cleaning this morning, remembering all of this mental debate, remembering finally buying the nano last fall, remembering I still haven’t fixed the original ipod, remembering too that now my cell phone is on the brink. And before I knew it, I was listing pros and cons in my mind about keeping the nano and getting a simple new cell phone or upgrading to an iphone and using my nano in the car.
Ugh. I felt heavy again. I felt indecisive again. I felt the weight of too many unknowns paired against an unwillingness to take on yet another technology debate. But worst of all, I felt incapacitated by the condemning thoughts ruminating in my mind:
“You don’t know enough about this new iphone technology to warrant the expense. You’re not a techno mind. You won’t be able to figure it out. You’ll break it. You’ll spend too much money and make a huge mistake.” And on and on.
I stopped sponge mopping. I had to. I was cleaning the same area around and around and going nowhere in my cleaning or my thinking. That’s what indecision does. It stagnates and paralyzes and really tries to stunt our growth. I was done with the mental debate. Time to calmly get still and pray–the ONLY thing I’ve found that not only silences the mental sabotage but frees you up so that you can make a good, productive decision.
I had to get into my thoughts and figure out the truth from the muck..the substance from the crap. The reality from the lies.
So I started reasoning this way. I knew that I was starting from the standpoint of being at one with God, the divine Mind, the all present and all knowing intelligence. As an idea of this mind, as its very expression, I knew that I had the wisdom, intellect, and ability at any moment to know what next step to take, whether that next step be more research and inquiry or whether that next step be to table the options, or whether that next step would be to actually purchase the iphone.
I was not a weak, inept, uneducated woman. I may not have all the insight I wanted, but I knew how and where to find it. I calmed down. That’s the pattern with aggressive condemnation. It’s never rationale. All its arguments can be silenced because they never treat you as an expression of the divine Mind. But you are and I am. And we never have to feel inadequate or incapable– ON ANY LEVEL.
None of us are ever starting from the standpoing of weakness or stupidity or frailty or naivete. Nope. Each one of us with any pending decision is starting from the standoint of being already right now an idea of the divine Mind with full complete access to clear, logical, right thinking.
What helps to hear the right choice or right decision is to first silence all that sabotages and condemns. And defend instead the all presence of the divine Mind and your immediate connection to this. Right now at this moment, Mind is everywhere, knowing, thinking, and doing all that is right, good, real and true. And right now, this moment, you are an idea of this Mind. And right at this moment, I am an idea of this Mind. So that means that I have and you have right this moment all the wisdom, intellect, reason, and awareness to take the steps to make a good decision. This is simply a spiritual fact.
All that is saying otherwise, all that is criticizing or condemning is not true. Shut it out. When you do, thought frees up to hear next steps that are logical easy and simple.
In my case, there was lots of technological questions I had. And as I shut out the sabotaging, I stilled my thoughts enough to sit down to the computer and start doing internet searches to read reviews of the nano and iphone. And within a short while I’d learned what I wanted to and knew what choice to make.
For me, the healing was in refusing to listen to the condemning accusations. And as I did that, thought opened up and dismay, discouragement, and fear of making a poor decision—all of this just fell away.
Keep at it. It gets easier. The chiseling may seem ongoing for a time. But the sculpture of you is there emerging gently.
Leave a comment, shoot an email or gimme a call if you wanna chat about any of this any further, kay?
Be well….happy sculpting….Tre ?