Introducing mindfulness into our lives does not mean we do not get to engage in interactions with vibrancy and color. It does mean however, that we stop engaging out of a blind thirst to quench our own Egos. It means that we convert our mindless reactions into mindful responses.
When I am in an agitated state or am with parents who are angry or disappointed with their children, I always say, ?keep the feelings, lose the reactions.? Feelings are meant to be felt. However, when we seek to then impose these feelings onto others, we enter into a state of egoic reaction.
We have every right to our feelings. In fact, we should pay careful attention to them because they carry valuable lessons for us. They are powerful indicators of how we should live our lives, what steps we should next take, and where we have yet to grow as spiritual beings. Yet, let us be clear: these are our feelings. By this fact, they are ours to honor, ours to process, and ours to heal. Therefore, we simply cannot impose these onto others.
We mistakenly assume that just because we are thinking or feeling something, we need to have others think and feel this too. Rarely do we take a pause and examine the origins of our thoughts and feelings, the egoic underpinnings of most of them, or the conditioned quality of their inheritance. No, instead, we think, then we feel and then we do the next most seemingly logical thing: we react.
This pattern of thinking = feeling = reaction is not only bestowed on our children, but implemented in almost all areas of our lives. We think about a performance, we feel anxious, we eat. We think about our children’s bad grades, we feel angry, we scream. We think about our financial situation, we feel scared, we control. We think about our future, we feel nervous, we smoke. We look at our image in the mirror, we feel insecure, we gossip. The list is endless.
The reason this pattern gets created? – at its root ? is because we are simply unable to simply be, and accept our being-ness. To simply be means to be attuned to the self and whole onto the self – as it is. It means to be connected with a deep and silent inner pulse without the need to be distracted by the whims of the outer world. It means to feel richly secure in one?s inner authenticity, content to be within one?s present life as it exists ? without adornment, embellishment or garnish.
To be content in one?s present life as it exists ? how many of us can truly say we can do this? It is here, through this contentment, that we will learn to think our thoughts and feel our feelings as they exist and not feel the need to engage in the ?doings? of reacting.
It is when we can be ? with ourselves ? that we will let go of the need to ?do.? It is here that we will lose the manic compulsion to react.
The greatest benefactors of our ability to let go of our reactions will be our children. It is with them that we will begin to feel our own feelings and allow them to feel theirs; think our own thoughts and let them develop theirs; accept our own being-ness and allow them to revel in theirs.
Let us begin today.
