In Nothing Be Anxious

My mind lately has been tending toward worried thoughts, for reasons not fully known to me.  I believe I'm matching the energy of fear that is so pervasive in the world today.  It's also likely that some of it is hormone-driven. . . such is life.   It's amazing how quickly my thoughts can turn to concern if I let them race by unchecked.

As I began my meditation today, I was wondering about what tool I could use for the worry that creeps in for no apparent reason.  I decided to pick up my copy of The Writings of Florence Scovel Shinn, and flipped to the back of the book looking for a table of contents.  There wasn't one, but the very next thing I flipped to was the first page of a chapter called "In Nothing Be Anxious."  Perfect!  It caused a chortle, in my delight at yet another demonstration of the unfailing truth that we always find what we seek.

I was reminded that I just need to change my mind.  For as many years as I've been practicing meditation, and learning about the truth of myself as the creator of my experience, my mind still runs amok at times.  That is the nature of the mind, and I'm learning not to get too stuck on where it goes.  Rather than resisting the unbidden thoughts, or even trying to understand them, it's much easier to acknowledge them and then just let them go.  Holding on just gives them more control over my experience.

Scovel Shinn adds another important piece to this in her book when she says that "Infinite Intelligence will express through (us) as success, happiness, abundance, health and perfect self-expression, unless fear and anxiety make a short circuit."  She goes on to say that it is more than just a matter of visualizing, or making a mental picture of Infinite Intelligence expressing freely through us, but "it must be a spiritual realization, a feeling that you are already there; . . . in its vibration."

For me, this spiritual realization is faith, in life, in myself and the process, and in the God who made me.  Faith creates within us the vibration of being open to our good.  When we have our eyes open to the perfect creative intelligence that we're part of, we'll always find the right chapter, and exactly what we need on our own divine path.

May this tool be a blessing. . .