Don’t Believe Everything You Think!

“Each morning we are born again. 
What we do today is what matters most.” – Buddha

Ever wake up in the morning, realizing the way you saw the world last night was just one way, one possibility, vs. the certain truth? That today can be a day of discovery, of new life, and possibility?  Have you ever realized you have seen another through your own fear instead of staying open, curious and welcoming to who they really are?

For, again in the words of Buddha,  “If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change.”

As always, today is a new day.  On this particular today, delayed in Denver’s sun-filled airport, I’m taking time out to ask: what stories am I generating about the people around me, and the world around me? What barriers am I constructing that I can tear down so that I can experience life anew?  It’s a bit of a humbling inventory….

How do I know? 

I am a consummate journaler. I journal so I can watch myself. What are my thoughts and emotions? Which ones are accurate?  Which are not? Often, when I am writing, I fall in the trap many of us do: assuming my thoughts are true!

Here is one of the gifts of journaling: this morning, reading back into last night, I can see one thought – one fear-generated balloon that passed through my mind – which I snatched out of thin air and asserted as truth.   This morning, with the rearview mirror a journal provides, I can see that this thought is really only one possibility.

I won’t share the mud of the thought – containing our own mud is one thing a  journal is for – but this process served as a great reminder…. don’t believe everything you think!

“Keep yourself clean and bright.  For you are the window through which you see the world.”   George Bernard Shaw

What could you do to better notice what’s on your window?  

What will help you keep yourself “clean and bright?”