When we still our minds, the dark thoughts see their chance. They rear up on hindlegs, and unleash howls of anger, anxiety, jealousy, or maybe pure fear.
And in the stillness, the dark thoughts scream, slither and shove for primacy in the front of your brain. They resent to their core that they've been ignored.
I say, let them come. Let the thoughts come. Allow the stillness to bring what it may.
My kids have an old picture book that was mine as a child, called There's No Such Thing as Dragons. A little boy finds a dragon, and every time the boy tries to tell his mother about it, and the mother insists there's no such thing as dragons! the animal grows another few sizes. It grows and grows (based on repeated denials) until it picks up the entire house on its back, and walks down the street. The father runs into the dragon, with the house on its back, and the little boy shouts out the window about what's happened, and still the father insists: but there's no such THING as dragons!
Finally the little boy confronts his parents, and says (quite reasonably) there IS such a thing, and he's right here with our house on top of him!.
Poof! Like that, the dragon is reduced to his original, puppy-like size and life returns to normal.
Which is all to say that the thoughts you don't want to spend any time with, the ones that you keep busy to avoid - those are the ones that need to be met face to face. They must be given space, and Stillness, in order to be reduced to size.
Stillness isn't comfortable, but it's one heck of a dragonslayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment