Hi friends.
Have you ever sat down to meditate,
To practice,
And thought,
Whoa,
My mind is so busy.
You're not alone.
It's one of the most common reasons people give up on meditation.
They assume that because their mind is so busy that they're somehow doing it wrong.
But what if the busy bind isn't the problem at all?
Our minds think.
That's what they're designed to do.
Just like our hearts beat.
That's what it's designed to do.
And when we sit down to meditate,
We don't expect our heart to stop beating.
And when we sit down to meditate,
Why should we expect our mind to stop doing what it does?
It's thinking,
It's worrying,
It's planning,
It's doing all the things.
The practice is not to become completely quiet.
The practice is to notice.
To build our awareness of our inner landscape.
And yes,
Over time,
When we do build that inner awareness,
We can get to that point where we increase our capacity to be present,
Where we can increase our capacity for joy.
So maybe we sit down to meditate.
And we take a few breaths,
And immediately we start thinking something like,
What's for dinner?
I particularly have that thought quite a bit.
Or we're replaying some scene in a movie that we just saw.
And when we notice it and bring our attention back,
To our breath or whatever our attention is on,
That's the practice.
That's the practice.
And over time,
We build capacity.
When our dog Molly was a puppy,
We would take her on a walk to the dog park.
And immediately after a few steps,
She's off the sidewalks,
Sniffing in the bushes,
Or going after a squirrel.
And we didn't get angry with her.
She's a puppy.
And she's so cute.
So we just gently bring her back to the sidewalk.
Again and again and again.
And over time,
She realized that the more time she spends on the sidewalk,
The quicker she will get to her happy place,
The dog park.
Our attention is the same way.
The more we can bring ourselves back again and again and again,
The more capacity we're building.
So don't view your busy mind as an obstacle.
View it as a starting point.
And when we're able to notice it.
Noticing is where it starts.
We notice it and we bring it back.
We build that capacity.
And over time,
We can spend more time in our own version of the dog park,
Our own version of the happy place.
That place where joy and connection and peace has always been.
So best of luck on your journey.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time.
