What Are You Up To This Weekend?

I had a realization today while journaling. I witnessed an old pattern that I needed to grow out of! I was feeling resistance that was keeping me in a small, bratty mindset that was young and immature.

Journaling about it put me in the observer seat to recognize the pattern and understand how it affected me and probably others around me.

In traditional Chinese medicine, the observer mind is known as the Hun. The Hun is the spirit or consciousness of the spring wood season, making it the easiest time of year to access.

The Hun is the observing mind, related to the third eye, with a big vision for our future and where we need to grow and develop.

When we can observe our mind through journaling in a stream of consciousness or sitting in meditation, we are no longer victims of old patterns of thinking and behaviors.

Wayne Dyer sums up the power of the Hun's observer:

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."

Typically, our unobserved patterns and habits are so deeply grooved in our minds that they become familiar, and we don't even see them. The problem is that we are drawn to what is familiar, even if it is unhealthy.

Through the Hun's power of self-observation, we can access our wisdom mind and experience "ah-ha moments" through journaling, meditating, and releasing the 'issues in our tissues' during our yoga practice.

The tension in our bodies, which we may not even be aware of, obstructs our wisdom-observing mind. By releasing this tension, we free our bodies and liberate much of our minds.

Once the Hun observing mind sees the pattern, we can't un-see it.

But old patterns are embedded deep in our minds (often decades if not generations old) and take repeated practice to undo.

Un-doing these patterns requires pausing from what's familiar and choosing a new way of thinking. For example, one might be trapped in anxiety, spinning the mind about everything that's going wrong in the world. Stop and pause, regulate your breath, and focus on what's right, what you appreciate, and what's working well. We can shift from upset to reset quickly by bringing gratitude to the moment.

I practiced this the other night when I woke up in the middle of the night, worrying. I observed myself through the power of the Hun mind and shifted to being grateful for my comfortable bed, my cozy house, this peaceful, safe neighborhood, and the awesome town I live in.

What I appreciate is more true than my anxiety about the future.

Gratitude is always the default to shift the mind back to an optimum state.

As Mark Twain put it, "The worst things in my life never even happened."

Training the mind takes repeated practice, as the old repeated grooves are much deeper than the new ones.

But what we practice gets stronger.

So, we start small. Every time we experience anxiety or old patterns, we name the issue, such as "anxious mind is here," and let the habit mindset float in the bigger field of awareness —not resisting it or entertaining it, but letting it float in a much bigger space of loving energy— the anxiety, the gratitude, the fears and anger, and the wisdom to witness it all passing through.

The energy from our mind sends out a ripple effect to others around us, for which we are responsible. Constantly talking about what's wrong adds more stress to ourselves and others.

Now, more than ever, we need to regulate our energy to soothe our nervous system by being the observer.

This is the most extraordinary power of yoga: to master the mind by the power of the kind, gentle observer so we can heal the dis-ease of the stressed mind, body, and collective.

From my heart to yours~

Namaste,

Maggie