Inside Out (bags & life)
When I was designing and making bags, I liked to make them 'inside out’, so the seams were neatly tucked away when I turned them the right way around.
We live our lives from the inside out, but this is often a hidden fact, like my seams!
Where Attention Goes, Energy Flows.
We create our experience based on where we put our attention, ie, how we use the gift (or tool) of thought in the moment.
If you image thoughts as clouds of energy floating around and sometimes popping into our minds - you can perhaps see that the thoughts aren't powerful or personal on their own - they are just there, coming and going.
Can you see the transitory nature of these thought clouds, similar to the clouds that pass through the sky?
Can you consider letting thought clouds pass by naturally, without either your resistance to, OR your holding onto them to examine, analyse or fight them? (I’m not suggesting only thinking positive thoughts, because, like the weather, we can't control what clouds appear.)
I’m suggesting that we let the clouds flow naturally, the way we let the weather do what it does without trying to change it (we may not like it, but we don't take the weather personally, or try and fix it.)
Understanding the Power of Thought.
If thoughts are like energy, constantly moving - new thoughts will come and go all day long. The thoughts we focus most attention on grow as we feed them with our attention.
With awareness, we can notice our moving thoughts and feelings in the moment. We can use these as a barometer, reminding us to just pause….. Then, from the now moment, we can simply direct our attention in a different direction, even by one minuscule degree, so that the trajectory changes.
So we're allowing all thoughts to be here, but we're recognising that they only have any power if we 'misuse' the gift of thought. We can use this gift in a healthy way if we see the strength of the capability TO think, versus the weakness (meaninglessness) of whatever thoughts happen to float by (ie WHAT we think.)
This is probably the biggest, most helpful thing to see for increased peace of mind.
Our suffering comes from our THINKING about what is happening, not from WHAT is happening.
Our thoughts about something create our feelings and our personal (subjective) reality, from the inside out.
Life or ‘what is' just is however, and it's a neutral fact: the objective true reality. (We might not like it at all, but it is WHAT IS.)
Our conditioned brain can seek (crave) or resist (fear) ‘life’, but the endless now is manageable exactly as it is. We can rest here, balanced in the now moment, not needing to add or remove anything because 'what is' is how life is unfolding - how could it be any different?
Our True Nature.
If you look towards 'what is, now' and the true essence of everyone you interact with, beyond (before?) their personality and behaviour (we are all human and doing our best) - you show more understanding of life and 'problems' seem different.
There's just life, one step at a time. That's much more manageable. We don't have to figure it all out and control life if we can just be ok with what is, now.
Our true nature, deep within us all, is our stable, secure, harmonious home base and it’s always available in the now, before the stories we add.
If you see the inside out nature of life (ie, that we perceive the world from inside us), you can live with more ease and freedom, moment to moment.
"We are living in the feeling of our thinking, not the feeling of the world."
Michael Neill - The Inside Out Revolution.