Watching thoughts float by...
Oh thoughts, you tricky things, whole stories made up on the trot, be they real or be they not!
Tonight I had a great opportunity to practise this. I was getting tea ready, scraping potatoes at the kitchen sink, and my husband said that our new-ish neighbour had invited him over for a coffee before tea. So away he went.
And away my mind went. It was lightning quick, my husband hadn't left the kitchen before the first story hit... our neighbour might want to talk about our dogs barking, it probably annoys him. Oh, then the story kept building... I hope that he isn't too angry, I wonder if we can fence the property differently so that the dogs aren't playing so close to his property or perhaps we will need to let the dogs out one at a time so they aren't playing together outside at all and they can play inside instead.
And what if it isn't the dogs? What else might be bothering him? Could it be the pile of wood in our driveway that we've put there while preparing the house to paint? I know it isn't stacked all neat and tidy, and he would see it from some of his windows. What else could we be doing wrong? Whatever it might be we would need to sort it because I'm not sure I could cope with an acrimonious neighbourhood relationship. Oh imagine if that happened and we had neighbourly angst going on, that would be awful...
What was interesting was that I was watching these thoughts float through and noticed the tension in my shoulders and jaw, I could feel my breathing becoming more shallow, and my brow furrowing with all that thinking! It is amazing that our body does all this and more all from little stories we tell ourselves. So I took a few big deep healing breaths and faced up to the truth of the moment that I didn't know what the neighbour and my husband were talking about and wouldn't until my husband got home. It was just as likely they were talking about gardening, their different jobs, the work we are doing on our house, how his cats have settled in... so I let it go... like a child letting go of a balloon (but without the tears or tantrums)! And it made me chuckle at myself to be honest.
I could have dropped into the stories I was making up and got myself all tied up in knots. It would have been so easy. The stories I was telling were plausible. But they were terrifically wrong. And all the energy that would have been wasted worrying and fretting- goodness I have better things to be doing with that energy!
How often do we unquestioningly believe the stories we tell ourselves? In these moments of clarity it is easy to see the futility of burying ourselves too deeply in the stories we make up.
For the record, the neighbour just wanted to have a coffee to get to know one of his neighbours better. He said he's never heard our dogs barking and that they don't bother him at all, and he also said that he misses our chickens wandering in his back yard. He was happy for the chickens to come back any time. Yup, my very quick brain got it completely wrong, thank goodness I didn't buy into the stories I was making up for too long, how silly would I have felt then!
I am grateful for the wisdom of others to help us live healthier, richer lives so I will continue to keep this in mind:
Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky.
Conscious breathing is my anchor.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
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