Stillness

“This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real.”  Rumi

When we take time to slow down each day, with Yoga or Meditation, it will benefit us in more ways than we know.  It helps benefit our overall health and physical pain levels, it helps our emotional being, feelings of coping day-to-day and lessening our stress and yet I always wonder, why are so many of us not doing it?

Perhaps we have never been told how to?  Eckhart Tolle has a wide variety of books out that can help you connect to the now.  “The Power of NOW” is a book I learnt a great deal from.  He explains in his book, why we find it so hard to stay present in this moment.  We are told over and over to fit in everything that life offers and it is so easy to get caught in the busyness of the world.

What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.  Buddha

It’s hard to get off the rollercoaster of life and that is exactly where a lot of people are right now.  If you suggest to friends, to try yoga or try to sit still for more than a minute all they hear you telling them to do is, ” jump off the rollercoaster”. Not many can or would!

So when you start to understand where people have come from or why they believe what they believe, then you can start to be patient with the way they live.  For eg.  A man in his 40’s is working long hours, training hard after work and then partying on the weekend, with no downtime.  As a spectator or family member you can wactch him, knowing that if he doesn’t stop, perhaps his health or something else will make him stop!

It often takes a health scare or a death, for people to stop and make sense of where they are going, but why do we wait for that?  Why do we have to have a heart attack or throw our back out or find we have cancer before we listen and nurture our bodies?

I have found the main reason why is because of how we have been conditioned from birth.  The man in his forties that is running around without any downtime, is a result of watching one or both of his parents doing the same.  It is an imprint of genetics, emotional and physical.  You may have your Mother’s blue eyes but you may also be an alcoholic like her too.  None of us want to share the bad parts that our parents pass on to us but the fact is, you don’t get to choose who your parents are.

What you do have a choice in, is changing these parts of yourself that you don’t like and changing is not only for yourself but for your children’s, children.  I often hear people say “I’m never going to be like my Mum or Dad” and that is a valid point but is it simply a change of mind and strong will?  I have not found this to be true for myself or others.

It is a process of healing.  A process of forgiveness for your parents and the way they taught you to live, a surrendering to the old belief system.

It is becoming aware each day of your thought process and understanding what you believe about yourself.  There is a saying “whatever you believe, you are exactly right”.  You are in fact, all that you believe!  So today, believe something different about yourself and those around you.  Start the journey of change.