“WE’RE BUSY DOING NOTHING,
WORKING THE WHOLE DAY THROUGH.
TRYING TO FIND LOTS OF THINGS,
NOT TO DO.
WE’RE BUSY GOING NOWHERE,
ISN’T IT JUST A CRIME?
WE’D LIKE TO BE UNHAPPY,
BUT WE NEVER DO HAVE THE TIME.”
In an old movie, Bing Crosby sings of the delight of spending time doing nothing.
Whistling his way through the day, he happily goes about his business untroubled by life’s worries.
Is this just movie material?
Could it be an inspiration for every day life instead?
Back last year, I took what I call “a spiritual sabbatical”.
I sensed that whatever I was trying to create for my coaching business came from a mind filled with thoughts of rush, inadequacy & doubts.
The game was simply no fun anymore.
Rather than carrying on pushing something that was never going to make a difference in anyone’s life (especially mine!), I simply stopped.
Whatever I had been doing up to that point, I simply stopped.
I needed to allow my mind to empty and rest.
Was I scared I’d lose clients and sabotage my career for good?
You bet!
But I didn’t let this stand in my way of learning how to become an expert at nothing.
I didn’t know at the time how long that’d take.
It didn’t really matter after all.
What mattered was that at the end of it, I’d be able to share with others the only thing that would really make a difference in their lives.
When you allow yourself to go back to “no-thing”, your mind settles, opens up again and you get to see life with fresh eyes.
Whatever struggles you are facing, when you allow the eternal creative force to move through you the impossible suddenly appears easier.
When you get yourself out of its way, you get insights that simplify what up to that point was damn hard.
Nowadays life appears to be very different to me.
Gone are the days when I thought things were destined to be in a certain way, with little room for change.
I now know (even though I still forget like everybody else) that I’m always only moments away from new thoughts and ideas.
If I allow my mind to empty and my crazy thinking to settle, I will get to see things in a totally new way.
I will spot possibilities where I previously saw no chance for change.
I also know now (I’m only human and I do forget this one too sometimes) that we live in the feeling of our thinking, not the feeling of the world.
Moment to moment, our feelings are a feedback of the quality of our thinking.
But when we are not aware of this, things outside of ourselves will look pretty solid to us.
It will make sense then to try and fix reality as much as we can so to keep its status quo.
We will strive and struggle, ignoring that the intelligence behind life will always return us to peace and wellness if we get out of the way.
Think of the mind as a conduit for fresh Thought flowing straight from the Intelligence behind life into our consciousness, where we experience it as our personal reality.
When this pipeline is open Thought flows freely and we get to experience new thoughts, ideas and insights very easily.
Life appears to be smooth and graceful then.
We are so used to always having something (or loads of things) on our mind, that we don’t know how unnatural this is for us.
So, paradoxically, we then spend our time trying to quieten all this noise.
We will turn to complex meditation practices forgetting that a meditative state is actually innate to our being.
A quiet mind & a beautiful feeling is what we really come from.
It’s just that we started to live a second life in our head along the way.
There is nothing that will quieten a busy mind faster than doing nothing. Click To Tweet
So whenever your life appears burdensome you know your thinking has gone astray.
That really is the best time to just put your feet up and have some “down time”.
Whatever that may mean to you.
Could it be catching up on some sleep?
Then have a nap!
Could it be watching old movies, eating popcorn and ice cream?
Go for it.
Maybe you’d just like to read a book or turn all your devices off and spend some time by yourself?
Why not!
Do what allows your mind to empty so it can welcome new and inspiring thinking.
Don’t be afraid to do it as long as it’ll take.
My sabbatical lasted 6 months, at the end of which I felt again that I could make a difference in my clients’ lives with what I had seen.
Most of all, I had learnt how to make a difference in my own life.
Would you like to learn how your thinking can be both very compelling and deceiving?
My coaching program Evoking Grace will offer you inspiring and effective ways to deal with everyday challenges while keeping your cool.
You can contact me by email for more details on the work I offer or to schedule a “Wisdom Within Session“.
Follow my mumbling & musing on Facebook, Twitter & Pinterest to be part of my online tribe”.
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