Author: M

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Moral Of The Carrot

I had eaten a great meal today. It was half sautéed half steamed carrot with scrambled eggs. The carrots were organic, and I had hand cut them into small strips. I made a little batch good for 2 meals. I heated the left over portion today for breakfast. It’s a satisfying meal because I love this dish and because I had prepared and cooked it myself. That is a prioritized goal – to cook all my meals and mindfully feast on the home cooked. As I was eating it, I felt myself trying too hard to eat mindfully, to savour my efforts, to appreciate the food.

Then I reflected, noticing that this trying too hard to be appreciative is actually is a form of overthinking (ie. anxiety)..Clouding the precious mental estate with unnecessary, excess thinking (information) and obstructing its capacity to process the present moment. I don’t need to go further with something I have already expressed and found completion which was… mindful grocery shopping + cooking + eating.

Being overly appreciative, neediness, people pleasing, complaining without intention of resolve, criticizing, doubting, thinking in terms of ‘deserving-ness/worthiness’…. all of these are in the same family of O V E R T H I N K I N G, which is in itself made of judgement and expectations!

When the mind wonders out of balance, turning busy or passive, we find that neither is ideal. We want to be mindful and at peace. This is the happy state of being! It’s a special state that requires a special and precious travel VISA.

We naturally desire acknowledgement and appreciation because it makes us feel like we are valuable, productive beings, which by the way, WE ARE by default, so stop worrying about that. Point being… busy thinking and acting busy isn’t how we get there.

We also naturally suffer emotional instability and lust for pleasure, which by the way, IS HUMAN NATURE, so stop feeling bad or guilty about such self-confliction. Point being… putting ourselves in denial and shame isn’t how we do it either.

If we follow a misled pattern of thinking, we end up with anxiety.

Don’t worry my carrot comrade, anxiety is reversible!! ….just like any other human condition. Just think of the intelligence that is giving us life, the very intelligence that took us from a non-existing to existing, from sperm and egg to a child in a womb, and now a thing that can process images, sound, language…., that has breath and adaptive, self-healing abilities, that can create movement, that is changing its reality by its way of perception…..WHAT A WICKED MACHINERY. WOW. (I feel amazed as I type this…) And guess what, we don’t recognize it, we don’t learn of its mechanisms and functions, we don’t try and understand it, we don’t give it the acknowledgement, the presence….so no wonder we are unable to feel the sense appreciation we so desperately desire!

There’s no wrong in the way our mind is conditioned to behave. But we can practice finding balance through setting intentions and training our mind to be objective and observant through our experience of life (ie. living + being present).

Every moment is an opportunity for practice….You can be intentional about being lethargic and doing nothing. You can be intentional about engaging or disengaging in any activity. You can be intentional about being alive in this very moment. It means taking ownership of how you feel, whatever it is you feel. Tired, scared, excited, numb, anxious, inspired, whatever it is.

And because you are being intentional, you are practicing mindfulness and creating your present moment. It may not seem this way, but in accepting your feelings, you are processing and extracting its lessons and transmuting any negative energy into the positive.

True productivity is in this self-reflective state.

I have learned to become a more moral person by first deciding that I want to be a more moral person and then through practicing ethics. Mindfulness is an ethic. By doing the work with mindfulness – acting with an honest presence- that in itself is great work. My energy becomes more intentional and present. This is what doing my best looks like. Doing my best is the ideal. There’s no need for doing better than the best…. that would be redundant and takes up valuable mental space.

Mindfulness is naturally self-acknowledgement and appreciation of the present moment, and so breeds gratitude within and creates for us a baseline of peacefulness and clarity, from which productivity can truly blossom.

When the mind starts to lose focus (going from mindfulness to mindlessness) and wonder into undesired states of egotism or self-doubting, it begins to overthink and become anxious. But the great news is we can practice being mindful by observing the mind (first of all, take a deep breath, and then a couple more) and bring it back to the present by trying to F E E L. By feeling, the mind will override the overthinking, and we gain a bit of awareness and intuitive ability….meaning we have shown respect to our ALMIGHTY INTELLIGENT MACHINERY, aka. YOUR TRUE SELF.

I should conclude before I go on forever (I guess I have already done so…)

The moral of the carrot is that I don’t need to try so hard, I have learned to do so naturally and embody the ethics. It is a lesson of faith in myself and in daily mindful practice. Gain a bit more objectivity and clarity with each reflection…. playing cops and robber within my mind….chasing and catching negative thoughts before they sneakily transform themselves into poor patterns and habits ….and if they have already slipped into my mind, I can try my best, no less and no more, to continue pursuing them and seeking ways to redirect my mind back to peace and clarity…

so I can finally play and engage in creation!!

The resolve is forever in our best efforts to feel alive.

Your Friend, Beta Carotene