Here's a thought - if everything we're searching for - all external rewards, lifestyles, material things, ultimately serve to affect how we feel on the inside - then why wouldn't we just work on our insides first, so that no matter what's happening on the outside, we control how we feel?
This is so simple, yet so profound. We've all heard "happiness comes from the inside" but if we really think about it - every thing we search for really comes down to how we think it'll make us feel.
Is it that we think we will only get that feeling if, and only if, we have those things?
Can't that beautiful feeling be there all the time? Why does it have to be conditional? Why do those good feelings go away?
It's because of the mind.
The mind is a serious party pooper. "I'll be happy if this happens" or "I'll be happy when I have this." These beliefs imply that I won't be happy if anything else happens.
The mind can be a serious problem. But if you learn to work with it, you can learn to use the mind to serve you beautifully instead of it being a party pooper.
We hold all of our previous negative experiences in our minds, and they accumulate over the years. If we collected everything that disturbed us in our lives into our mind, we'd get a disturbed mind, and that's what most people have.
To combat this, growth comes in the moments when we have little disturbances that bother us. For example, road rage is when someone has so much stuff inside of them, that it needs an excuse to come out.
This is a good time to relax and release. Get in the habit of letting this stuff go, saying "I don't want this stuff inside of me." Over time, this works.
And it's not life or death. Things don't have to be a certain way.
You can't just be good at the boulders. You have to handle the pebbles in life too.
Ask yourself, "Can I learn how not to do this?" for the little things, the pebbles.
You live in there! You're doing this. If you find a way to work with yourself, you can be happy.
Instead of wanting things to be a certain way, I'm going to start saying that I want life to be the way it is. Therefore, I'll always be happy, because life will always be how I want it - how it is.
There's only one way to live our life. And that is life, not the mind.
Live with substance!
Gabe
