Anyone else out there having a hard time clearing their minds these days. Mostly
you know by now, hopefully some of you know that I've recently changed jobs.
Well it's not actually technically a change, it's different responsibilities. Where I
was overseeing just one territory at work for a long time, now I'm overseeing
the entire East Coast. So that comes with three additional markets I now represent.
It's a tremendous amount of work that's been laid on my plate, and
because of it, I'm having a hard time sleeping. I mean understandably.
So in my previous life I used to be a perfectionist and there's still a
little bit of that inside meets The fact is I'm somewhat competitive now. I
do like to be successful, and I know all this is ego driven,
I understand that, but intrinsically it's who I am, right, It's in
my fiber because that's how I've been programmed to be. So the fact that
I've got four markets now that I've got to develop, well that should give
me pause. But I'm driven to be six tessful. So when I don't
have enough time in a day to work out all the problems, and figure
all the answers out and service all the clients that need to be serviced in
that day. When can my mind process all that stuff? Of course,
when I'm sleeping. This means that I'm not sleeping very well these days,
as you can probably imagine, I'd say probably the past few weeks, because
my mind is constantly active. Well, that's also been affecting my meditation practice.
It's very hard for me these days to clear my mind enough to just
be. And the times when it happens, it's glorious, but they're snippets.
They stick around for like ten, fifteen, maybe thirty seconds, and
then I'm right back to thinking thinking thinking. I do what every mindfulness meditation
teacher tells you to do, which is just acknowledge that you're thinking, release
it, and go back to not thinking. And I do that, and
I'm successful to a certain extent, but not as much as I was before
this whole change of work thing. What I'm finding is the the more I
focus on the fact that I'm thinking, recognizing that I'm thinking, acknowledging it,
and then moving it aside and going back to not thinking, well,
the more it seems to stick. So the reason why I'm telling you all
this is because I know sometimes it's difficult to meditate or focus on whatever it
is you need to focus on because we're all super scattered these days. There's
a lot going on in the world, a lot going on in our lives,
so it's understandable. But hey, stick with it now. I can
tell you I'm not there yet. I'm still having a hard time clearing my
mind. But I have noticed that the more I stick with it, the
more I acknowledge the thinking and release it and just go back to trying to
just be. The more it sticks, the more it opens up, and
hopefully sometime in the very near future, I'll finally be able to get back
to that all encompassing peace that I had every time I meditated before all these
changes. I have faith that that's what's going to happen, because every time
I do it, it sticks around just that little longer, maybe a microsecond
longer, but I feel it. I can feel it. It's getting longer
and longer the peace that I'm feeling. So if you're experiencing something similar,
my advice to you is stick with it. Just do your ten minutes or
fifteen minutes or twenty minutes or thirty minutes, whatever it is that you do
in the morning, in the middle of the day, at night, whenever
you do it. And if you don't meditate, I urge you to do
that obviously, to try it, pick up a practice, because I found
that meditation changed my life. I know a lot of people say it's difficult,
it's boring, it's blah blah blah. But if you need help,
there's help out there. There really is. And if you stick with meditation
with a practice over time, you're going to find that suddenly you're much happier
with it. But anyway, if you're already meditating and you're having a hard
time clear in your mind, just be patient with yourself. In fact,
have no expectations of what your meditation practice should be. Allow it to be
whatever it is. If your mind is racing, racing the entire time,
hey let it race, because at least you're taking time to do nothing but
think and let your mind race. And little by little, if you recognize
or realize that you're thinking, go ahead and just acknowledge that you're thinking,
release the thoughts, and then go back to not thinking. And the more
you do that time and time and time again. The more you'll find that
it's easier and easier and easier to clear your mind. Over time, you'll
find the peace that we've all been striving for. I have faith that that's
what's going to happen, and I wish you the absolute peace that we all
want to find.