In my last blog post, I talked about how I aspire to be more mindful, and to do less scurrying.
I know how to be mindful. That doesn’t mean I always practice it. I began to study mindfulness in the early 1990’s, and have practiced it to varying degrees since.
This week, as I thought about my commitment to live more mindfully, I pondered what conditions in my life would support me being more mindful.
Just like a gardener creates the conditions that best support the plants she wants to grow, I need to create the conditions in my life that will help me be more consistently mindful.
Pilgrims are mindful out of necessity.
While the Camino path from Saint Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain is known, the whole journey is unknown territory for each pilgrim.
Each pilgrim has a different journey (physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually) than any other pilgrim.
So, in order to meet life as it unfolds in this unknown territory, pilgrims are open and receptive, and they listen. They are mindful of their walk.
They sense and hear and use their intuition to meet the daily unfolding of changing circumstances and challenges.
As a pilgrim of life myself, I need to create the right conditions for me to sense and hear my own intuitions, in order to meet my own life unfolding in unexpected ways.
This week I have realized I have a Cart Before The Horse Problem. I have had it all wrong in how I have structured my life.
Essentially, my ratio of “doing” kind of time to “listening” kind of time is off.
I journal and meditate in the mornings, but at this time in my life, for whatever reasons, I need a lot more “listening” time, perhaps a couple of hours a day.
This would be radical, almost revolutionary for me.
But quiet inner time is where all of my ideas, insights, art, and products, like the Alignment Kits, comes from. It’s where everything I create comes from.
The inner well is our source of wisdom and creativity. It is often our most reliable locus of peace.
How can any amount of time be too much, if it is what allows us to connect with those essential gifts?
How do you connect with your inner well of wisdom, creativity, and peace?
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