Experiencing the Experience

For most of my life I thought my ability to over prepare for something was a huge strength of mine. I knew that no matter what I had coming up in my life, I knew how to prepare, prepare, and prepare some more. The benefit of that is that I was always prepared. I always had an idea of what all the possibilities were that could happen, how I would react, and even what I could do to prevent some of those possibilities. 

I saw it as a gift. Someone once said every gift has a dark side. While I was telling myself that I needed to prepare more because then I could anticipate everything that could happen, I was spending a huge amount of time in my head thinking. This was valuable time that I was with my loved ones and away from work but I couldn't get myself to stop preparing (or to put it another way, having overactive thoughts). The other downside is that when I was in these situations or circumstances that I was preparing for, I was still stuck in my head going over the possibilities and was never truly present or listening.

Since I've learned that I feel my thinking from moment to moment and that my circumstances cannot make me feel anything, I found myself becoming more present during these situations and circumstances. I found myself being able to show up and just experience the experience. I found myself being able to speak of what came to mind in the moment without judgment or concern of how it would sound to everyone else. I trusted that Mind would allow to come forward to my thinking in the moment what needed to come up. This released so much pressure that I placed on myself. 

I've talked to many people who feel the need to over prepare and over think things. And I was one of them! What I hear most is that if they don't over prepare and over think about something coming up, they feel anxiety, nervous and generally uneasy.

But there is hope. As your understanding deepens regarding the power of Thought and understanding you are the thinker and that the content of your thoughts does not matter, you find this effortless ability to be present in those moments and wait for the information to come to you. And when it doesn't? Remain quiet and let the Mind do what it does.

I'll leave you with this. 

When you can get out of your own way, and out of your own head, possibilities will start to show up where you didn't even know they existed. If you take a snow globe and shake it up, the snow starts to swirl all around and the picture or object in the snow globe is no longer as clear as it once was. How do you get a snow globe to clear up? You don't continue to shake it (same as when we try to fix our "mental" problems with more and more thinking). You leave the snow glove alone and allow it to settle. Once it settles everything will again be clear. 

Until next time,

Jackson Brown

"Your thoughts are not reality but your reality is created by your thoughts"