Opportunities for change surround you everyday, yet are you aware of them?
"Tiger" - Photo by: Lucy Crisetig
You spend so much time worrying about what could go wrong or how to make it better. Meanwhile, your Soul is waiting for you to get excited about everything that could go right or is already good.
Your subconscious mind has a tendency to search out the scary, hurtful potentials if you’re in survival mindset.
So, being very present or mindful with your thoughts and feelings can help to process the emotions keeping you in survival mode.
My cat, Tiger’s passing, brought me huge wisdom and a spontaneous practice of mindfulness.
He was a beautiful black and white tabby with a wise and kind disposition. My kids grew up with him for the 12 years he was with us.
We found out about the cancer in his body about 2 and a half weeks before he passed away. It was a shock that I could be so unaware of the pain he was probably in and that we were quickly losing him.
So much sadness hit me with every beautiful memory of him that popped into my mind. And I knew this was not the way Tiger would want to see me. Yet, it felt like I had no control over the tears.
One day I was sweeping the floor near the mat he used to sit on, with the sun streaming through the patio door. It made me laugh every time he tried to catch the broom as it swept by him.
That memory made me feel so much joy, happiness and love - but only for an instant.
Your thoughts create the emotions you feel in your body. Knowing this, through mindfulness I chose to pay attention to my thoughts and how my body felt.
I stayed mindful of what was causing the sadness — the tears.
There was a space between the memory and the pain - and I caught it!
Just before the sadness, these resistant thoughts followed the memory within a nano second.
How could I have let this happen?
Why didn’t I know earlier?
He was in pain and I didn’t realize it.
I stayed completely present with the whole sequence, feeling everything while staying unattached to the story these thoughts were telling me.
In other words, I stayed mindful moment-by-moment, as if in slow motion, of each thought I had and the feeling it created in my body.
This is the mindful process in action.
Instead of staying with those beautiful emotions of joy and letting my heart expand with that memory, my thoughts swooped in to remind me:
He’s no longer here.
He suffered with pain.
He wouldn’t eat or drink.
The feelings from those thoughts completely erased all the beautiful feelings flooding my body just moments before.
This awareness brought me a sense of freedom from my old beliefs about what it means to grieve.
My next thought was, “Where did the initial beautiful memory come from?”
It occurred to me that maybe I was dishonouring Tiger and our relationship by pushing away all those beautiful feelings in order to fulfill my old beliefs of death and grief.
With this awareness, I was able to mindfully choose thoughts and memories that he and I could both enjoy.
If you'd like to learn more about mindfulness and how creativity is a graceful entrance to experiencing it, send me an email for more info at: info@lucycrisetig.com.
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