Sometimes my mental censorship is a good thing. Sometimes it's not. A lot of what I think is not necessarily a good thing to share. I used to believe that my thoughts were the truth and that they represented me - who I am. I've learned - and a fabulously helpful lesson it was - that a great many of my thoughts are pretty meaningless.
One of the spiritual journeys I've taken and am still on, is the practice of watching my thoughts. Some of what I observe might be useful to someone else even though I would probably get quite a bit of disagreement from a number of people. When I'm watching my thoughts, I try to set aside those things that might be useful from just the random stuff that wanders through my mind.
It occurs to me from time to time that all of us seem to be focusing on a bunch of things that are pretty irrelevant to our quality of life and ignoring things that might really help us live our best lives. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but when I'm ignoring stuff that could really be in my best interests to pay attention to, I'm usually unconsciously trying to protect myself from noticing that I am the one who could stand to make some changes!
Here are some things I tend to censor:
Nutrition - It's clear from all the scientific research that the quality of our lives is hugely dependent on what we put in our mouths. In relation to how massively important it is, the amount of attention I pay to what I eat is pretty small.
Exercise - I have many, many excuses for why this item isn't near the top of my priority list. After all, I'm kind of old, kind of disabled, and what do you expect of poor little old me? Oh, come on: once again exercise is at the top of the researchers' list for creating quality of life.
Meditation - Many amazing things have been discovered by studying regular meditators. It doesn't seem to matter what religion they are or if they even have one, but spending some time being quiet and still for a few minutes every day seems to make a huge difference in their stress levels, their ability to get along with other people, etc. etc.
Okay, okay. I'll stop censoring the thoughts about these obvious priorities and put some more effort into them instead of the bologna I usually pay attention to and report back.
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