Guiding Thought

I willingly release patterns, habits, and thoughts that inhibit Freedom. My thoughts and feelings transform through remembrance of Freedom through Love. I was born with everything I need to be free in Love. I allow Love to lead me. I trust Love and I surrender to its wisdom.

Sharing

One very basic meditation is to count one’s breaths. One, two, three…up to ten, and then start over at one. It sounds simple, easy. But what many people find is the mind will wander and they will lose count. “One, two, three, I’m really hungry….I wonder what I have in the fridge…maybe I need to go shopping…oh yeah, I’m out of eggs…what number was I on?”

When the awareness hits that the counting has stopped and the mind is wandering, the count begins again. “One, two, three, four, five, that project at work is really complex…I wish I could just do it…those people in accounting haven’t gotten me the information I need…it really bugs me when people don’t respond to emails…I wish I could complain to someone…my boss is so unreceptive and won’t do anything anyway…oh wait, I’m supposed to be counting. One, two, three, four…”

The meditation serves as a focus for the mind, to anchor it in one place.

In a way, the Guiding Thoughts do this too, except they anchor the mind on ideas rather than numbers.

I had to remember this today. I had the equivalent of buying eggs and finishing projects in my head while I was reading the Guiding Thought; my mind kept wandering. It was wondering about freedom…but it was wandering none the less. This is not a meditation in a strict sense, and it is ok to read the Guiding Thoughts less intensely (that is, without absolute attention). But one of my commitments is to go deeper, so I reminded myself of that (as my mind was wandering), and really worked at keeping my mind focused on the words of the Guiding Thought.

It took about ten minutes for me to relax into it, to let go of the chatter in my head, and to remain focused on the words.

One outcome of being more focused on the words was that it brings up a state of getting beyond the words. That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it? Focusing on the words takes me past the words.

The words mean something. Getting past the words meant approaching the meaning that is beyond, or under, the symbol.

I seemed to really be influenced by the first sentence, though I am not quite sure how. I kept trying to think about what habits, patterns, and thoughts I should be releasing and this started my mind wandering. Instead of allowing those thoughts to continue, instead of trying to figure out what needed to be released, I pulled my mind back to the words, and just focused on the quality of being willing, and then watched myself release. It was kind of like watching bots on a search-mission find things I didn’t know were there, and when they found something, I watched it kind of evaporate, like watching heat rise off the hot pavement.

That was how I figured out about getting beyond the words. It wasn’t like I thought, “Oh, I need to get beyond these words.” Rather, I got beyond the words (into a visualization-type space), and the thought came, “There’s something more here, something the words show me, but are not the words themselves.”

Once I saw that happening, I tried to make it happen with the rest of the words of the Guiding Thought. I was not as successful (I was trying to make something happen, and that’s always an inhibitor), but… I did go a bit deeper with the rest of the sentences. I could feel it, just a different layer that became accessible (because even though there was inhibition, there was also intention. And intention always produces results at some level).

Either way, I felt successful today. Something shifted.

As a final note, I’d like to invite you to watch a video. This is one of the places my mind wandered as I was doing the exercise. When I watched it earlier today, all I could think was, “Now that is Freedom. That is living. I want to learn about freedom in that way.” We all have our path; everyone learns freedom in their own style, in their own way, in their own time. Here is a different flavor of Freedom that really inspires me; I hope it will inspire you too.