Wednesday Whiteboard quote - March 11

"For one who has not examined the mind and has always identified completely with passing thoughts, the possibility of being able to rest in awareness free of thoughts may be a bit disconcerting. It's a little like the caterpillar pointing up to the butterfly and saying, "You'll never get me up into one of those things." -How Can I Help?

I’ve struggled in the past with speaking my mind. 

Sure, a bit of that tendency is due to the people-pleasing side of me that, from a young age, hasn’t liked to rock the boat (any more than it was already rocking), but a lot of it is because most of the thoughts just aren’t helpful. 

“Why are they standing right in front of the baggage claim when they see I clearly can’t get my bag? What’s wrong with them?” Proceeds to tell some random stranger to move and learn some manners. 

“My one weekend off this month, and it has to rain. Just my luck. It just isn’t fair.” Proceeds to tell everyone how drastically unfair it is and how we can never catch a break.

It ultimately comes down to whether we want to be right or free. If we want to be right, we are going to spend our days wasting our energy trying to get everyone to align with how we think every moment of the world should pan out. Good luck with that. 

Wanting to be right and then speaking our mind without thinking is like vomiting up the bile of our past that we haven’t been able to notice and work through. 

If we want to be free, free from the need to constantly try to make people and situations different from what they are, we must examine the mind and see the insanity of most of “our” thoughts.

It’s within our power to find the balance between speaking our mind through a response (a response means it’s not immediate, there must be space between the thought and our action) or vomiting all over ourselves and others with our past.