Dear Tom:
We take a vacation, we attend a retreat, or we simply complete a quiet meditation, and feel on top of the world. We take a stroll in the park, we spend an evening chasing the moon in our car letting the breeze cool our face, or we simply take a long soothing bath, and we feel as if we have all our stresses chased away. Then something brings us into the present. A problem of the moment destroys all the benefits of a vacation or a top-down car ride. We slip back into the same state of mind, we had before, regardless of our meditation technique. Even after a breakthrough that enabled us to see how inadequate our previous strategies had been, our old habits die hard.
How do we build a bridge between our vacation state-of-mind and our real-life situations? I wrote to you yesterday, that perhaps we need to look at our attitude and perspective. Well, in that examination we may find our answer. What makes us think that the beach walk is not real, and the drudgery of our day job is? Mystics talk in terms of states of being, what if the feelings and emotions of our vacation state-of-mind are the fruits of our struggles. The bridge we need to construct is the realization that our true self is found in our strolls in the park, not in the petty issues of the day. Our escapes in whatever form they take, are not retreats from life, but are in fact rehearsals for the life we are meant to experience. Our struggles are merely building blocks to our evolved self. Just like attributes such as compassion, mercy, forgiveness are the fruits born of the struggles we face in life. The struggles we face daily will produce the fruits we experience for a short period when we meditate, or get away for a few hours or days. Think about the way we feel on a vacation, relaxed, more creative, and more alive. Such feeling were born in your daily struggles. The problems that seem so difficult and insurmountable are catalysts for our greatest joys.
Seem crazy? Try one day to capture the feeling of the moment when you are most refreshed and relaxed as a result of an escape. Then plant the seed of that moment in your daily life and just let it grow. Soon it will be providing you cooling shade in the scorching heat of your day. Eventually you will find yourself returning to that shade for and more until it becomes home.
Sorry for my random musings this summer day. Webb
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