The other day, a client said she wanted to describe something that she had been experiencing lately. You see, she’s made it a priority in the last few months to stay as centered as possible. One thing that’s helped her is meditation. So she’s been meditating pretty consistently at home, and then it turned into shorter little meditations elsewhere if she found she was off-kilter, like stressed out or anxious or whatever. Work is a common place for that, so she’d pause and breathe for a very short period of time when she noticed she was off, and her body and mind would click back into place faster and faster. Then with a more relaxed body and mind, she would respond to the situation. And of course she would then handle it way better than if she had tried to do it while stressed. A win-win! Aren’t those nice?
So she noticed that as she lived this way more and more, gently practicing, she could sort of “drop in” to that deeper place of peace faster and faster. And after a while, she noticed that she didn’t even have to officially “meditate” to get there. It was becoming more her normal state, or at least a state that was never too far away. And that’s a VERY big deal for a human. This state was certainly not as far away as it used to be, and actually she used to not even know it existed! And it was inside of her since she was born… And that really seems to be the human condition.
So she was trying to explain this to me, and she was searching for the right words. She said something like, “It might not make sense, but I’ve noticed that I don’t even have to really meditate like I used to, and I’m still experiencing these…” And she paused, waiting for the right words. And I said, “Deeper feelings?” And she said, “Yes, that’s exactly what it is!” And I explained that I’d experienced the same thing before, and I had just started reading Michael Neill’s new book The Space Within: Finding Your Way Back Home that puts the perfect words on it. Deeper feelings. Deeper feelings of peace, contentment, safety, and “okayness.” I love that word, by the way (even though it’s probably not really a word. Except in Scrabble, because everything is a word in Scrabble. Back to the story…) If you really look, you might see that when we’re triggered, we’re pretty much saying that what is happening now is not okay. But the only problem is that it’s already happening… So if we can have this foundation that I am at least okay, even if life isn’t how I want it to be right now, then I’ll feel better and I’ll respond to the situation much better. Again, there’s that win-win. And this is exactly what my client has been experiencing. Bam!
In his book, Neill makes an awesome analogy. He says imagine you’re on a huge barge on totally flat, calm, still water. No waves, no storms, nothing dangerous at all. Total safety and beauty. But there’s a roller coaster on the barge, and you’re riding the roller coaster. But there’s one more thing – you’re blindfolded. So you have no idea where you are. You don’t know about the huge, safe barge or the super tranquil water. Instead, all you know is that you keep getting whizzed around, up and down, left and right. You feel far from safe! But if you take the blindfold off and see what’s going on, you can chill out since you realize that wow, you’re actually totally safe. There’s something safe and calm that the fluctuations of the roller coaster are happening on top of. So the safety and calmness is deeper. And knowing this, the ups and downs of the roller coaster become less and less of a big deal. You might or might not like it, but you aren’t afraid for your life. So you aren’t freaking out like you might’ve been before. It’s a totally different situation.
This is how life is with our emotional ups and downs, lefts and rights. As you practice what we talk about here at A Clean Mind and in so many other places now, these fluctuations just become less powerful. Less thick. Less dense. Less opaque. You start to experience what we are calling deeper feelings, like peace and contentment. I imagine that after a while, this really becomes your HOME. It’s always there – it’s built-in, in fact – but it sure doesn’t seem like it! That’s because the emotional fluctuations cover it up. And nobody tells us this stuff yet in our relatively un-evolved society (like when we’re in elementary school or at the very least, middle school). I mean, we can send a rover to Mars but we don’t understand and teach kids thoughts and feelings??????? Okay, rant narrowly averted…..
So consider that this might actually be true; just consider it. That deep inside of you there is a feeling of peace that’s deeper than all of your other emotions. It’s the foundation on which the other ones come and go. If you feel to meditate, do it. And if you’re just starting out, I always recommend searching the internet for free guided meditations rather than fighting the chatterbox. It’s just faster that way. And then you might do it on your own after you get the hang of it. Just feel it out, because you are in charge of you. But also see if you can’t sort of “relax into” or “fall into” or “drop into” this deeper place anytime, anyplace. Without even closing your eyes. In the grocery store. At work. Because you never know what you might find, and how cool would it be if this were indeed true! Wow… Many humans are experiencing it more and more these days as we are slooooowly waking up to what we really are, beyond the body. It feels nice, that’s for sure. So I was thrilled after my client mentioned this to me. And I was thrilled that I had the perfect words for it, as well as the perfect analogy. Big thanks to Michael Neill for that, and the synchronistic timing is cool, too. Happy practicing, and as always, let me know if I can help!
Optional Deeper Part: Okay folks, I’m totally struggling with my direction now, since this blog has drifted into way deeper waters lately than I ever thought it would. “Struggling” isn’t the right word, though, because I am definitely relaxing into it and letting it evolve, letting it play out, letting it sort of be birthed. And I’m being totally honest right now, which feels really good. I’m starting to think that two blogs might be appropriate, but I don’t know. But in the meantime, here we are! And we’ve just written The God Post, and I’m about to write a post about Anita Moorjani’s book Dying To Be Me. It’s almost finished, and it’s another monster post. Hey, we have a lot to talk about! So let’s just say that we have some tie-ins with this deeper peace. Anita’s experience of God as not a being, but rather a state of being, which is our natural state – that’s exactly what my client is experiencing. It might be just the beginning, but it’s the same thing. It’s what is there when we get out of the way more and more. So we don’t have to find peace; we have to get out of the way. It came with the package, as unbelievable as that may sound to so many. It’s actually our foundation. Also, Anita talks about first getting centered when stressed, and then dealing with the situation. And she said that sometimes the situation takes care of itself without her having to do anything! And this is exactly what my client has been doing. So cool… So there we go, just some tie-ins to the recent deeper stuff. As always, you rock, and much love to you wherever you may be!