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Tag: Analogies

How To Clear A Pond

Published on September 27, 2021

Step 1) Stop agitating it. Every disturbance clouds the water and sends ripples of distress throughout. This causes the pond to become cloudy and mudded.

Step 2) Filter the water. When a pond is still, most of the wandering particles will settle and the water will clear. But, running the water through a filtration process will expedite and enhance the process of clearing the water. Filtering also removes particles from the pond altogether rather than simply allowing them to settle to the pond’s floor.

Why should you care?

Because a pond is often used as a metaphor for the mind.

And understanding what disrupts and clears a pond can help us understand what disrupts and clears our mind.

So, how can we follow this same two step process for our mind?

Step 1) Stop agitating it. Every disturbance that you allow in through your senses will cause your mind to cloud and become mudded. Every hateful, demeaning, negative, hurtful, upsetting, gossipy, self-limiting, comparison-oriented thought does this. Exposing yourself to more of the opposite helps; meditating helps; blocking sources that agitate you helps.

Step 2) Filter your thoughts. Writing is thought filtered. When you start writing regularly, you’ll think more clearly, act more deliberately, and understand your emotions more than ever before. You could do gratitude themed writing in the morning, reflective/day-planning/goal oriented writing in the evening, thought-releasing journaling during the day, or just write to a blog like I do about whatever is on your mind.

You’d be surprised at how effective this process is at clearing your mind.

And just think about how much easier it will be to see the content of your mind’s pond once it’s finally cleared…

If Momentum Is Not Your Friend, You’re Foolish

Published on September 22, 2021

Momentum is either your greatest ally or your greatest foe.

Learn how to use momentum in your favor and the tasks of your day will topple over seamlessly, one to the next, like a perfectly aligned series of dominoes.

One push and momentum will take care of the rest.

Ignore momentum and the tasks of your day will topple and stop erratically, requiring you to keep re-pushing the next series of dominoes again and again and again.

For me, getting out of bed in the morning is the initial push of my dominoes which hits:

  • Shower—which hits,
  • Workout—which hits,
  • Breakfast—which hits,
  • Reading—which hits,
  • Driving to work.

The dominoes are beautifully ordered and adequately spaced. All I have to do is get out of bed at the right time and the rest feels automatic.

There’s no guessing. No setting up dominoes as I go. No reshuffling the dominoes after I’ve already tipped the first one… It’s all premeditated, sequential, and intentional.

And once I arrive to work, of course, the next chain of dominoes gets pushed—and so forth, as the day goes on.

Where most people run into momentum issues, is when they don’t take the time to properly set up their dominoes (tasks) ahead of time and/or don’t have them properly spaced out (time management).

If you look at your day in this way, I suspect you’ll find where the missing “dominoes” and irregular spacings lie. Adjust accordingly.

Having momentum as a foe, to be frank, is a stupid waste of time, energy, and effort.

Starting from stopped is always harder than keeping the momentum going.

Momentum, meet reader. Reader, meet momentum.

Now, be friends.

Feelings > Possessions (Part 2)

Published on September 21, 2021

The feelings we crave the most are connected to the feelings that hurt us the most.

The desire to feel:

  • Cool is connected to feeling uncool
  • Admired is connected to feeling un-admirable
  • Impressive is connected to feeling unimpressive

The feelings that pain us are like emotional wounds and the opposite feelings act like the remedy.

Possessions are like band-aids—they only temporarily cover up wounds. And they do nothing to address the pain itself.

If we want to truly heal, then we need to do the same kind of work that our body would when wounded. We need to:

  1. Clot the area and stop picking scabs: The first step is always: don’t make it worse. We need to stop feeding our minds toxic, belittling, hateful information.
  2. Send white blood cells to fight infection: Just like the body can become infected, so, too, can the mind. Every positive, healthy, healing thought and action we can facilitate is like a white blood cell being sent out to fight infection. The more the better.
  3. Create collagen to form new tissue: As the worsening stops, infection is steadily fought, and healing actions continue—pain will subside and new thought processes will form.
  4. Let scars heal: The scar might itch and demand more picking at first, but stay disciplined—eventually it will fade. After a few years, the scar may even disappear completely.

The bottom line: the intensity of our desire for pleasurable feelings is proportional to the intensity of our painful feelings. The more we heal our pains, the less we will need those remedies disguised as opposing feelings.

And we’ll finally be able to rip all the band-aids off.

Feelings > Possessions

Published on September 20, 2021

Why do people really want the possessions they do?

I can tell you straight away it isn’t because of the possessions themselves.

In fact, in most cases, what people really want is to feel a certain kind of way.

And getting that possession, in their mind, is how they feel it.

People want to feel impressive so they buy the new iPhone.

People want to feel cool so they buy the Gucci slides.

People want to feel admired so they buy the BMW.

The problem, of course, with buying things in order to acquire feelings is two fold:

  • One, what’s impressive/cool/admired today, won’t be tomorrow. You’ll be stuck in a never ending loop of always needing to upgrade in order to keep reaching forever fleeting feelings.
  • Two, the people who make you feel impressive/cool/admired because of possessions and not innate characteristics, won’t be there tomorrow either. They will be just as fleeting as the possessions themselves.

That’s why, the real game isn’t about acquiring the most expensive possessions.

The real game is about learning how to acquire the feelings in spite of the expensive possessions.

Because while band-aids have their role, they should never be prioritized over the main goal: healing—so that band-aids are no longer needed at all.

Ignoring Conflict Doesn’t Lead To Peace

Published on September 19, 2021

Here’s a thought: want to cultivate inner peace? Stop avoiding inner conflict.

What happens when a fight breaks out and nobody does anything about it? It continues.

And in many cases: it escalates.

It takes the brave bystander to step in before things start to settle; the courageous cop to heave themselves into the middle of a barrage of fists; the over-worked and under-rested parent to draw the line and invoke discipline before the family feuds finally dissipate.

It’s the willingness to confront conflict that leads to peace.

Not the willingness to peacefully ignore conflict in hope that it resolves itself.

Love In A Box

Published on September 17, 2021

Most people try to harness their love and put it into a box so that they can give it to one specific person.

But love is not something that is put into a box. Nor is it something that’s given to only one specific person.

In fact, I would argue that a person who manipulates their expression of love from one person to the next, isn’t actually expressing love—they’re playing a game.

Like when the person you’re out to dinner with acts like the living embodiment of love to you, but then acts like the opposite to the waiter.

Hardly love if you ask me.

Love is something that overflows from the top of any of your boxes and touches all those with whom you connect with.

Love is patient; love is kind; and love radiates synonymously from one person to the next.

Love is not impatient; love is not rude; and love is not something that points only to certain people.

Which begs the question: what about intimate love?

When somebody else’s love touches you in a way that increases your expression of love (and so does yours for them) then you both may decide to intimately explore the merging of love.

And the difference becomes not the type of love you express (it’s still the same that you’d express to others), but the amount you can express when it has synergistically merged.

Which is why, when “true love” is found, you can’t help but overflow because the result is greater than the sum of the individual love—more than you could ever fit within some box.

Living In Imaginary Prison

Published on September 15, 2021

Living your truth will set you free.

Living a lie will confine you into a cell of your own making.

Freedom is saying what you think and how you feel, as who you are.

Captivity is saying what you think others want to hear, based on how they feel, so that you can be who they think you are.

Don’t you see? The entire thinking process is under arrest by the anarchical judgements of others.

But, here, in this prison, there are no iron bars. There are no orange jumpsuits. There are no keys or guards.

This cell, the one you might find yourself in when you live a lie, is imaginary.

Whatever guards, keys, jumpsuits, and iron bars you feel incarcerated by, have been (and can only ever be) sentenced by you.

And so is the case for your sentence to freedom—it’s all decided within the confines of your mind.

So, how do you free yourself?

  1. Share your truth—with those closest to you, first. This is the key that will unlock your cell.
  2. Embody your truth—start to carry your truth with you into the outer areas of connection in your life. This is you walking out of jail and adjusting back to the “real world.”
  3. Live your truth—Continue to embody your truth until your truth (finally) becomes you.