Weeks passed and no blog posts – or culinary projects or even reading. In hindsight it is clear that it was caused by thought-clouding. In one measly area of my life there was some stress… Okay, there was some significant stress. But it was in just one arena. However did I allow the ONE stressor in the ONE aspect of my life to overwhelm all other aspects? Easy… Thoughts. The thought pattern about that stressor began to take up more and more time. It gobbled up more of my attention. Then the emotions were affected and ultimately so was the physical health.
I was aware of the stress and aware that it was consuming too much time and attention. In an attempt to counteract that issue I increased the meditation time and upped the daily exercise regimen. Those seemed like good ideas at the time. Looking back now it appears that they were not necessarily antidotes so much as they were resistance to the stress pattern. Will power was applied to divert the attention from the stressful situation about which I could do nothing… but to little effect.
Thought clouds had thickened to the point that the inner sky was overcast. The body succumbing to illness was proof positive of that. Thoughts lie to us. Emotions lie to us. But the one part of our being that never lies to us is the physical body. It has no mind of its own.. it simply manifests either subconscious patterns whatever is occupying the conscious mind.
Ta da! No magic and no coincidence. The body simply outpictured the anxiety and frustration that had clouded the consciousness for nearly a month. And it grabbed the attention fully when over the course of a couple of days it became difficult to breathe and the voice was lost.
It was time to stop. Stop ruminating about a situation over which I had no control. Stop feeding thoughts that robbed me of sleep, rest, inner peace and physical health. Suddenly the focus was on right Now – because the body demanded it. Moment to moment I was aware of labored breathing, and fully occupied the attention.
The body is blessed with the innate wisdom of Now-ness. Mostly we ignore the body… or we disparage certain of its qualities. The billions of cells, however, are always listening to our thoughts and feelings; and those cells then respond to the repeated inner cloud formations.
Moments of clarity are blessings; moments when we simply focus on breath, or when we turn our attention from the mental yammering to the acceptance of what IS.
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