Will My Mind Puh_LEEZE Wave a White Flag...?!?

You save the world by taking responsibility for your awakening and then where that awakening leads to, you follow. Maybe you will be a social activist, maybe you will be a hermit. That’s not up to the thinking mind; the thinking mind is no longer the leader, it is the follower.

The thinking mind is an exquisite follower, but first it has to surrender to follow.

>>>>>>You have permission to be yourself.<<<<<<<

Gangaji

Ahhhhhhh ... This is my mind. This is my mind on ... thinking (yeah, may as well be a drug ... though, honestly, I'm hunching that would help, not hinder!).

Bearing in mind what I said yesterday, about how my mind is utterly lacking either an off-switch, or a dimmer switch, read on.

I'm alone a lot (after previously living in a household of 10 who were at-home 24/7), and while I lean into extroversion, I swing into introversion, on a regular basis ... I have a "rich inner thought-life." Ha! I have an imagination that can run marathons. I can tell myself a WHOPPER of a story...! And because I'm highly visual, my stories come with vivid, full-color, visceral, fully-sensitized, surround-sound *illustrations* so as to be convincing.

I also have a committee in my head. Yup. A buncha folks. Many voices, each of which possesses a strong and stubborn (& often oppositional!) opinion about me, about life, about how the universe "should" operate. Now, realistically, I know they're all "me" (or past-voices of judgment/experience that seem to have mental squatters-rights), but dang they seem to be nigh unto "legion" (& yes, I grasp the implication of that particular word, & no, I don't care), and they often seem to gang up on me, ALL at once, having a shout-fest, each one clamoring for my attention, agreement and action. Yes, it can be crazy-making.

I own this. My voices. I mean, I once had umpteen invisible friends, when I was a child, and they were *real* to me ... to the point that I would cry if the newspaper boy hit my invisible-friend on the head, or if the grocery-bagger put a bag on top of her (of course, since then I have pondered whether I was then-aware, and have since blocked-out, a connection to angels ... guides ... entities that are part of my cosmic entourage, but I digress - that would be a whole 'nother blog-post).

And, today, on the back of my car, one of the many bumper-sticker-blings says, "Four out of Five Voices in My Head Say 'Go For It!'"

My voices seem to really feel the need to take one of my many arising emotions, and run to the fatal conclusion with it (i.e., "this hurts; I might die" ... "this is hard; I might fail" ... "I am lonely; I will forever be alone" ... "I don't have a job; I am gong to end up homeless"). I'm one of those "highly sensitive people" who feels EVERYthing (and I do mean EVERY thing) intensely (thinking that oughta be another blog-post, and perhaps soonly, to remind myself of the reality with which I must contend). So, the emotions flow in, or arise (some seem to come from the collective-consciousness, and others seem to come from within my own depth, and it just ain't always easy to discern which is which!), as emotions do (because they are e-motion: energy-in-motion), and I FEEL them.

There is no not-feeling, no means by which I can numb-out (I lived a life of numbness for many years, and I would rather feel even excruciating emotion than to live-numb), and often these emotions seem to hit with the force of a tsunami ... with an onslaught that threatens to drown me. When I dive in, without reservation ... willingly-intentionally swimming into the waves, beneath the surf, down to where the "water" is still, and dark, and formless ... I meet with a calmness-in-the-midst-of-the-whirlpool ... the eye of the storm ... if I can remain there, holding those emotions like a baby, without a story, without condition, for as long as it takes ... then the e-motion integrates and lifts ... then I go *through* ... akin to coming up for air, with the radiance of clarity filling my heart, as it gasps for breath. It's painful, yes ... frightening, very ... unsettling, to say the least. But there is something so deliciously authentic about surrendering to that raw, unguarded vulnerability, to open myself wide to the ravaging-embrace of the emotion (whatEVER it is: fear, grief, sorrow, joy, loneliness, pain, anger, excitement, bliss) ... something so incredibly rewarding about taking that inordinate risk (because a part of me always wonders if I shall survive).

And I do. So far ... I always do. Even when I think I won't. Even when I think I don't want to...

My heart is my refuge. And when I live from my heart, when I trust my heart, when I follow my heart ... it leads me into my soul's purpose. I can't claim that I understand ... or that it seems safe ... or that I know what the hell I'm doing ... but those are the demands of my mind, not my heart.

My heart knows the way, and knows it often has to take the circuitous, treacherous, vastly-dark, loop-de-looping, through-the-brambles, and off-the-cliff course.

Because ... I got in the "roller-coaster-line" for this lifetime ... and no matter how I whine about wishing I had gotten in the "stupid-happy line" instead ... I don't really mean it.

Certainty ... predictability ... safety ... those are not only myths of epic proportion, but they would bore the SNOT out of me ...!

My minds says things like: "count the cost" ... "be careful!" ... "play it safe!" ... "keep that hidden!" ... "don't take risks!" ... "think it through" ... "do what's expected!" ... "put up a wall and protect yourself!"

My heart says things like: "do you feel that longing? trust it." ... "it's ok to love" ... "unleash, risk, try, dare" ... "don't hold back, even if it hurts" ... "follow those urges/longings/desires/promptings/hunches/intuitions, for they are most-you!"

So, yes. Despite what our culture believes, the HEART, and not the MIND is predominant (the heart is more than 5,000 times more electro-magnetically powerful than the brain - fathom THAT!). My mind wants to be in charge, but it's limited to my senses. My heart is meant to lead ... for it is connected to All That Is, and knows The Way that my Soul already chose, and came to live-out.

May "it" ... and therefore, *I* ... surrender.

My mind tells me to give up, but my heart won't let me. ~Lao Tzu

It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see. ~Thomas Carlyle

Where the mind is past hope, the heart is past shame. ~John Lyly

The mind cannot long act the role of the heart. ~Francois La Rouchfoucauld

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul. ~Anna Quindlen

The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand. ~Robert Valett

I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. ~Vincent Van Gogh

What the conscious mind can't recognize, the heart might know. ~Marilyn Monroe