In every situation, every day, we have decisions to make. Things that perhaps we need to be mindful of. Some are easy, like whether or not to get out of bed or what time to leave for work, and others are pretty difficult decisions that require a lot of thought, like where to invest our savings or whether to move house or change our job.
Many of our activities during the day are spontaneous, automatic and without much thought at all. We don’t often think about breathing for example, or how to move around. These things are ‘automatic’, our brain controls our breath and our movements yet wouldn’t it be great if from time to time we paid attention to how deeply we are breathing or how easy/co-ordinated our movements are. There must be other things in life that we might not be paying due care and attention as well. How about the number of times some of us just pop a biscuit in our mouths, or pick at left-overs (when we are actually quite full) without really noticing what we are doing? I’m not proud to admit that very often I find myself driving down the long dreary motorways in ‘auto-pilot’ too. And scarily, this morning just as I was about to write this blog about ‘mindfulness’ I still managed to empty a whole packet of ground coffee into my coffee pot instead of the empty jar! Why? because I was listening to the BBC news about Europe instead of giving my full attention to the job in hand.
Isn’t life like that from time to time? We can become so distracted that we allow our emotions to cloud our judgements on really major issues. We can become so involved in other people’s dramas that instead of concentrating on our own happiness, health, or job in hand we risk changing chapters of our own life-story. How easy it can be to fret about outcomes instead of fully enjoying every moment. Outcomes in someone else’s life perhaps (albeit our close family) or political issues that effect our community. Many British people will be feeling disheartened today (48% in fact) and are possibly fearful of the future created by the results of the referendum in Britain to come out of the EU. Yet the birds are still singing, the clouds swimming across the sky, the sun beating out midsummer sunshine and the roses are blooming in glorious colour . I can hear the children still innocently squealing in the village school playground wonderfully oblivious of their parents worries, and my dog is patiently waiting for her walk. Mother Nature, undisturbed, carries on with her own agenda oblivious to our daily human affairs.
At our Essene Summer Gatherings we remind ourselves during our morning Tai Chi practice to “pay attention and set our intention” to the movements, particularly why we are doing them and what we hope to achieve. We concentrate our own thoughts on raising the chi, the life-force energies, into our own body. We actively concentrate on raising our own vibration (and that of the group) with each morning and evening meditation, and send out ‘Peace to All’ at each noon contemplation. We mindfully eat in silence during our ritual silent meal on the Sunday, and we bless our food and water at every meal. For those short days we are mindful, fully present and co-creating with the angels to maintain a loving community of friends which spreads out measurably throughout the area surrounding us. Then I get home and find that I have to try really hard to maintain that level of presence in my own daily life.
Spirituality for me is a given. I know that I am a spiritual being and that I have incarnated in order to serve. Yet part of the daily practices that I know to be incredibly helpful to my spiritual life are also alien to my personal human nature. As a empathic, sensitive, creative kind of person I can be changeable, emotional and contrary. As an Aries I can often be impulsive and occasionally reckless. So becoming mindful, present in the moment, consistent and consciously careful is jolly hard work. But I am one of the lucky ones. My belief and faith in God and the angels is unshakeable. I know that what we work at with a pure heart, we achieve. I absolutely trust that my prayers are always answered and whatever knocks me down never keeps me there. I know that we can learn most from time spent in the shadows. When we step out of the shadows into the light, especially into the Angel Light, colours are brighter and our vision often sharper than we imagined it could be.
Being ‘self-centred’ isn’t actually about being selfish, it is about becoming more mindfully and consciously aware of how everything we think, do and say affects those in contact with us. If we desire world peace, we have to learn how to gain inner peace. If we wish to be loved, we have to be loving to ourself and others. If we aim towards a mutually supportive and successful community, we have to be supportive and successful in our own personal growth. Following my amusing coffee-pot incident I’m going to spend the rest of the day practicing being in the moment and more mindful about what I am doing. The teacher often teaches what the teacher needs to learn!
Let’s all work together on this. Many cells make the body, and many wonderful souls make our world. And it is still a wonderful world, let us all work at making it even better.
