Look Someplace Else
by Leslie Sann
If you don’t like what you’re looking at, look someplace else.
~ John Morton
I have at times experienced mind chatter about not succeeding. Well, it’s more a melodramatic cry of, “Oh, no, I’m not going to make it … this is surely my demise.” Amusing when I watch it like a movie at which I am growing more skilled. I’ve been watching the show long enough now that the drama has become akin to the buzz of a fly trapped in my kitchen. Just noise in the background.
Yet, no matter the negative self-talk, I keep going and find I eventually win. Hmmm. Isn’t that interesting?
I became aware of this background dialog years ago while playing solitaire on my phone to quiet my mind. It is a game I enjoy because I can reshuffle the same hand as many times as I want and eventually, if I keep at it, I win. I keep taking action. Trying yet another strategy. Perhaps if I move these cards first. And if I keep on keepin’ on, I end up winning, thus showing my mind it is a liar. All its yapping about there is no way to win is just that. Blah blah blah. Reality, based on experience, shows I win if I persevere.
Amazing to me a simple brain-quieting game has taught me so much. For example, I found myself on the way to the airport in unexpected and unplanned for traffic. I noticed my thinking, which wasn’t pretty, especially the fretting thoughts about what would happen if I didn’t arrive in time to check my bags. Worst-case-scenario thinking. Yet, I kept on driving, making time where I could, still in action.
I arrived at my gate with plenty of time.
If I observe myself I always win because I don’t give up. I am in action. There is always a next and a next. Even if I had missed my plane, which I did not, I know I would have figured out another action to take to get me to where I was going. There is always a next action.
I don’t have to believe this thought, or that thought either. If a thought is creating stress and contraction, I can design a different thought, one that will serve me better. I can observe the mind’s conversation from a place of observation. I can say to myself, “Hmm, interesting to notice that I have a limiting point of view.” I don’t have to contract into the mind’s thinking. I can be aware thinking is happening. So what, now what?
Now what is that I can acknowledge life is happening other than I planned and things might not turn out the way I had imagined. I can choose to place my attention on a next action, knowing it is in my nature to figure it out … and win.
If you don’t like what you’re looking at, look someplace else. That is how we change our reality. We can look for what is missing, where we messed up, how life is against us, OR we can change our life by changing our focus, by looking someplace else!
Life just doing what it does. Ha-ha-ho-ho-tee-hee. There I go again, making God laugh by pretending I know what will happen next.
Now what?
Keep on keepin’ on.
That is all there is to do.
Yours from Planet Joy,
