It’s time to get on with it….

Today is a good day to commit to your spiritual journey.  You’ve probably noticed that time is moving fast.  It’s not your imagination.  Everything on Gaia is speeding up.  Waiting for the perfect moment to commit to your spiritual journey is the conscious mind’s way of delaying.  I’ll talk a lot about the conscious mind in future posts.  It’s important to understand how you and I (and all of us) think and rationalize, and justify and delay.  The conscious mind is never going to jump up and say “Yes!  Something spiritual that I actually have to sit still and spend more than 30 seconds on!  Yippee!  Where do I start?!”

Sorry to say, that is not what the conscious mind is going to do.  Evah.  How do I know this?  Because if the conscious mind liked quiet and stillness, you would already be doing some kind of spiritual practice that takes you inward.  The conscious mind loves activity:  frantic, pointless, going round and round in circles activity.  Open up that webpage, check your phone messages or email, go to facebook, send a text, post to instagram.  Rinse and repeat.

Learning to sit still and just breathe is not how most of us are taught to be.  We are so used to a fast paced existence, with carefully designed advertising and news feed urging us to stay connected 24/7.

Your spiritual journey is the most important step you can take, and it is the step your conscious mind will resist with every fiber of its grubby little being.  So you have to do it anyway.  Start small, and overcome the objections slowly:  start with 10 minutes of sitting still and following your breath.  Phone off, tv, radio and laptop all off.  You may find that if you sit quietly that you nod off.  That’s okay, set a timer so you don’t stay asleep for too long (and give your conscious mind a reason not to try this again.)

Start with 10 minutes and build up to 20 minutes.  There are a variety of choices for spending this quiet time:  a guided meditation may be helpful, or try the technique of counting breaths, 1 to 10.  At ten breaths begin again.  Or you can try focussing on the end of your nose as your breath comes in and out.

For some people, sitting still is really difficult.  If this is the case for you, try getting some children’s crayons and just coloring a page of paper.  Just big swatches of whatever color makes you happy.  Or you could do a coloring project, either downloading a page or getting an adult coloring book.  Whatever you find that relaxes you while keeping you awake, and lets you shift to a quiet mental mode of being in the moment without any thoughts or concerns.

Baby steps count.  Start where you are at.  Just do start.  Your spiritual life is waiting.  Make the choice to commit to yourself.  It’s time to get on with it.