Your Mind: Artist Tool Or A Lethal Weapon?
"If you have ever been in a life-or-death emergency situation,
you will know it wasn't a problem. The mind didn't have time to
fool around and make it a problem. In a true emergency, the mind
stops; you become totally present in the Now, and something
infinitely more powerful takes over." Eckhart Tolle in THE
POWER OF NOW
I looked above my head to see why my fall to earth wasn't being
slowed. Above me was a malfunctioned parachute in what had been
described to me in class as a "Mae West" where one of the lines
had draped itself over the fabric keeping it from opening
properly.
I glanced down to the ground to estimate my distance from earth
and the amount of time I had left in my life, then gazed back up
to the parachute to see if the malfunction had cleared itself
yet, as instructed in class. The cord continued to choke off the
fabric. I repeated the exercise once more, confirmed that indeed
the malfunction was not clearing. I then reached down to my
back-up chute attached to my front and with one hand pulled the
cord that would free it, while clutching the ball of fabric that
was my last chance for survival. I would need to throw the
secondary chute away from me to minimize the chance of it
becoming fouled in the "Mae West." I glanced up one last time
and watched as the line slipped from around the fabric, freeing
it to open like a real parachute. I breathed for the first time
since leaving the airplane.
My one episode of a malfunctioning parachute happened over 20
years ago, but it confirmed to me what Tolle wrote about our
mischievous mind. My mind didn't have time to create the
malfunction as a problem. It was simply a life situation that
needed to be dealt with as effectively as possible. Luckily, I
had had a very competent instructor, my older brother Dale. It
wasn't until I was walking back to the hanger that my knees
began to buckle. "I could have been killed," I heard my mind
tell me. Then and only then had the malfunction appeared to me
as a problem.
We can use our mind as either an artist tool with which to help
create a masterpiece of our life or as a lethal weapon we use to
kill off life, ours and others. A key first step to using the
mind as an artist tool rather than a lethal weapon is to
disassociate ourselves from our mind; to recognize that we have
a mind but we aren't our mind or the thoughts that it generates.
>From that position we can then choose which thoughts to hold
onto and which thoughts to observe and let go of.
Using the tools and techniques of the Life On Purpose Process
for the past 10 years has helped me get pretty good at making
the 'right' choice by choosing to hold onto and empower thoughts
that are consistent with my life purpose, and to release
thoughts stemming from the fear, lack, struggling that make it
based on Inherited Purpose.
How about you? Are you allowing your mind to create life
draining problems or beautiful life enhancing possibilities?