"We are what our thoughts have made us; so, take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far. " Swami Vivekananda
This week’s mindfulness challenge is to observe your thoughts for thoughts are energy. With every thought we have, minute by minute we contribute to the living energy of this planet. No thought dissolves into the ethers but instead contributes to the psyche of this planet. We know this because we feel and react to the energy on this planet regardless if we are aware of it or not.
Energy does not just wither away but instead it gets added on to whatever like energy is on this planet. Energy attracts like energy. If your thoughts are of worry, fear, anger, condemnation, judgment, self-righteousness, love, kindness or compassion regardless of what end of the spectrum your thoughts fall into, it gets contributed to the same energy thoughts of your town, state, country and the entire world.
This week’s exercise is to not only be aware of your thoughts but making a conscious choice of what you want your thoughts to be and at the same time keeping in mind you are contributing to energy of this planet. If we want to contribute love, forgiveness, understanding, patience, hope, compassions then those need to be our thoughts.
There is much chaos in this world and especially after last week’s event at the Capitol, but we do have choices on how we want to respond to it. It is always a choice. During this exercise, if you find yourself having “negative self-talk” stop yourself right in the tracks and choose another thought. If you have thoughts of fear, replace them with hope for nothing stays the same forever. One thing we can count on is the impermanence of life, life is constantly changing. If you have thoughts of judgment replace it with patience and understanding and say to yourself “I’ve made mistake just like other people, I've learned from my mistakes so can they.” If you find yourself bitter or angry replace it with patience, for things sometimes need time and space to work itself out and if we have patience, we strengthen tolerance within ourselves.
Deeper Meaning: We often think that the actions of others dictates how we think and respond to things but when we understand that we are the only ones responsible for our thoughts and our thoughts create our reality then real change can happen not only within ourselves but in our world. All it takes is taking responsibility for our part in it and it starts with what comes out of our mind.
