Tag Archives: mindfulness

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Unload Your Truck!

At my core, I’m just an ole country boy. I love country cooking, country music and riding around country roads in my Dodge Ram pickup truck. I love my truck. It’s not anything fancy and it has a lot of rough miles on it, but it’s mine and it’s paid for. I’m not really sure how it happens, but every so often, I have to take some time to clean out and unload the back of my truck, which us country boys call the “bed” of the truck. Some how, trash, bottles, cans, tools and an assortment of other stuff always seems to accumulate in the bed of my truck and it drives me crazy, until I take the time to clean it out.

I have found that the very same thing happens with my mind. It accumulates thoughts, many of which serve no real purpose, other than taking up space, rattling around and making me crazy. I have learned that every now and then, it is important for me to take time clean out and unload my mind.

It’s not very difficult to figure out how this happens. We think one thought until another thought comes a long and takes it’s place. We don’t really release the first thought, we just throw it in the back with all the other thoughts that we think we have moved on from. The problem we face now is that we have all these thoughts rattling around, making noise, competing for our attention and sometimes this makes it very difficult to get anything accomplished.

So, every now and then, it is very necessary to take some time to unload the truck. The way we unload our truck/mind is by taking and making some time to meditate, pray, practice devotion or sit in solitude. This time allows us to take advantage of the tiny spaces located between our thoughts.

We have no real idea where a thought comes from. What we do know is that it comes out of silence. When we have a thought, there is a very brief moment between the letting go of one thought and grabbing hold of another. This brief moment is a time of silence and space. You can call it whatever you want to call it, the important thing is to realize it exists and offers us an opportunity to exercise some control, so that we might have a little more say about what comes and goes.

There is an old Zen saying that says: “It is the silence between the notes that makes the music.” We train ourselves to listen to the sound and usually ending up missing out on the power of the silence. This is why we need to empty the truck/mind every so often, so we can learn to hear, appreciate and learn from the silence. Music would be impossible without the silence and so life becomes impossible when we allow ourselves to be overtaken by our thoughts and all the noise they produce.

At the very heart of a thought is the act of creativity. The creativity happens in the silence, moment and space between our thoughts. You were created in the image of your Creator and therefore you are a creator yourself. So, I want to encourage you to take some time to get still, to find comfort in silence and discover your place of creation. Once you are there try to do these three things:

– Unload and clean out your heart, mind and spirit!

This does not have to be complicated. I like to use a journal, there is just something about pen and paper that help me to get my thoughts out and organized. It makes it easier to know what to hold onto and let go of. The important thing is to take the time on a regular basis to do the work. A little work every so often, saves you from a lot of work and usually some pain later on.

– Learn to enjoy solitude and silence!

For most people, taking time to get away from all the distractions and sit in silence is a challenging task. It’s not easy, but with a little practice, consistency and discipline, you can do it and you will be glad you did. Start with just five minutes a day, focus on your breathing and practice letting go of your thoughts by every time one comes into your head for attention, shifting focus off of the thought and back onto your breathing.

– Embrace your creativity and have some fun with it!

Once you begin to start unloading your truck/mind, you will discover what a difference it makes in all aspects of your life and you will look forward to the time and the creativity that it unlocks to flow from your life. You may want to use this time to write, draw, color, paint, work on some kind of craft or whatever? Just find some sort of output that allows you to express the creativity that has been freed up, because you will be amazed at how this will grow into a blessing for you and others.

The Bottom Line: This is your life, do what you have to do, what you want to do to enjoy it, because you were created for so much more…

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What Do You Want?

There is a pretty simple question we have to ask and answer, if we really want to experience the blessings we were created for. WHAT DO YOU WANT? It is surprising to me, how many people have not taken the time to really answer this question. Looking back on my own life, it is humbling to think about how many times I have failed to ask and answer this simple, but powerful question.

There is great power in INTENTION, but to figure out our intention we have to ask and answer the right questions and then follow up with action. We need to ask and answer the “What Do You Want” question everyday and often, multiple times throughout the day. There are a lot of different varieties of the question, but they are basically asking for the same thing. What do you want? What is your dream? What is the main desire of your life? What will make you happy? What is your intention? What inspires you? What are you passionate about? What do you want to create, manifest and make reality in your life?

This question is important, because it drives our thoughts and THOUGHTS ARE THINGS! The things we think about become our reality. The Scriptures teach that we were created in the image of our Creator, which means: WE WERE CREATED TO CREATE! The question is: “What Are You Creating?”

There are two worlds, one we can see and one we can’t see. One is physical and one is spiritual. We live in between these two worlds in what is a beautiful dance of co-existence of back and forth between the two. We are spiritual beings living our human experience in a physical body. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:1 – “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This means that what is seen, begins it’s manifestation in what is unseen. We live in both places and in between and this is why asking and answering questions is so important and necessary.

Take some time today to ask and answer the question: WHAT DO I WANT? And think about the steps you can take to manifest and make reality what simply begins as a thought. You may just be surprised at the power you discover that has been placed within yourself to do the supernatural. And once you discover and tap into this CREATIVE power, this human experience takes on a whole new meaning as you begin to live in the blessings you were created for…

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What’s Better Than Happiness?

Remember the television show Hee Haw with Buck Owens and Roy Clark? They used to have a bit on the show where four miserable looking fellows would sing a song called “Gloom, Despair And Agony On Me!” The first line went something like this:

“Gloom, despair, and agony on me
Deep, dark depression, excessive misery
If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all
Gloom, despair, and agony on me”

This is the world we live in for a lot of people today. Our lives have become filled with stress, anxiety and over thinking. We often find ourselves caught up in the overwhelming feelings of frustration, depression and discontentment. This mental fatigue leads to all sorts of physical problems such as stomach problems, high blood pressure, headaches and muscle problems. This is not the life we were created for. I promise you – you were created for so much more!

While there is not an easy fix and no cure all potion, there are things we can do to help facilitate peace in our lives, which contributes to the harmony that brings balance and allows us to live with intention, rather than by happen stance.

I hear people say all the time: “I just want to be happy!” Did you know there is something better than happiness and it’s what you were created for? You may not always be happy, because some things go your way and some things don’t. Life does not always flow in the direction you choose, and this has a tendency to impact if we are happy or not. And while you can’t always be happy, you can always have joy. Joy is what you were created for, it is your human experience birthrite. You were created in joy and for joy. When you realize this and believe this, it helps you to stay in step with your created purpose and automatically helps you to be in a better place to fulfill your dreams and experience your desires.

Joy tells me that even when things are not going the way I want them to, that there is still a purpose and if I will trust in that purpose and keep a right attitude, life will adjust and come around to where it needs to be. In the Old Testament book of Proverbs 17:22 says: “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

Joy says: “I am just happy to be alive with another day of opportunity to experience blessings.” Joy helps you to focus on what you do have, rather than what you don’t have. Joy helps you to understand that feelings are just that – feelings and you ultimately have the power to choose how you are going to feel.

Whenever you find yourself getting out of alignment, take a moment to step outside all of it and remind yourself: I am joy, I was created in joy and for joy. Joy is what I was born for, it belongs to me and I belong to it. Joy helps me see things more clearly, experience things more honestly and grow through things that would normally try to take me out.