Mind overload!

It is the fifth day of me sitting by a pool somewhere in tropical south China, staring at water, thinking of "nothing" when I realize I needed to travel 5000 miles to empty my mind. 5000 miles! Not to mention it took me eighteen days of my twenty one vacation days to get to that point. Give it up for the quiet mind guru! I am of course by no means a quiet mind guru, but it is a personal topic of interest and I talk about it often, if not all the time. It is even written on a post-it at my "all I want for 2015" wall (I firmly believe it is good to be driven by the things in life that you want to achieve instead of all the things you don't. Dream big, change your can not’s into can do’s, therefore one New Year’s resolution later my post-it wall was born).

How come we get so distracted in daily life that we forget about ourselves and the things that matter? Walking around with a mind so packed it feels like an average commute to work on the subway in Japan. Thoughts keep on bumping into each other and are on a high level of irritation. They have no intention hopping off, and don't give other thoughts the opportunity to hop on. It is a cramped mind on the verge of explosion!

Walking around as a ticking bomb is not my ideal lifestyle. I have just let it happen without realizing it has come this far. If you think about it, I am not the only one. Many people have a high blood pressure, isn't that just our body telling us the mind is too packed and too stressed? The only solution to an overloaded mind is to empty it. Meditation is a perfect way to do that. Take some time everyday to sit down and let your roaming thoughts that don't serve you any longer go. Imagine them floating away in a bubble or on a cloud to useless thoughts graveyard. If you’re not a person with a wild imagination, you can listen to guided meditations on YouTube, or the pyromaniacs amongst us can write their thoughts down on paper and burn them. Letting thoughts you no longer need go will make space for new and creative ones. Your mind will no longer be an overcrowded subway in Japan but a calm pool in the tropics. Why complicate things if it can be that simple? 

Be happy,
~Ilona~