Relax your mind…

The family was in town from Kansas City and Denver for the bi-annual family reunion.  So, I decided before everyone came to Utah that I was going to spend the time thinking of nothing else but my family and that I was going to be fully present and enjoy every moment we had together.  I finished up all of my work on Wednesday; crammed in some long, arduous time on my Master’s Degree and prepared myself for the celebration.  And man, did we have fun!  One activity after another and nothing but a whole lot of love.  But after everyone left today I realized something very interesting.  Something happened that I totally didn’t expect!  I found myself completely at peace and totally relaxed…  So, you might ask, what is the learning exactly?  The learning, found in the crucible of human experience, is that a peaceful and relaxed mind comes not so much from what you think about, but rather what you decide not to think about!  All of us spend so much time fretting over things and all that fret is to no avail.  No-one ever solved an issue in their life by stewing over it, in fact just the opposite occurs.  We get so focused on our problems that our problems become our life.  And if it’s true that what you focus on, you become, then eventually you just become a big, fat problem.  No-one wants to live that way.

If you are like most people, and I assume you are, you eventually learned as an adult that life is full of pitfalls waiting to bash you over the head.  You can’t ever really relax because if you do ~ WHAMMO! ~ something is going to get you!  You see, somehow we got the message that to relax means you aren’t handling your business and like when you let your tags expire on the car, the cops aren’t far behind.  Now we all know that ‘ridin dirty’ causes more stress than it’s worth, but do you really think that all that worry and angst is useful?  You’re scared to death of catching or developing some disease, but did you ever stop to consider that you really don’t have any control over disease.  Sure you can make some healthy choices! Sure you can do your best to stay fit, but disease doesn’t seem to adhere to those patterns does it?  In reality disease is spiritual, but that might be the subject of another blog!  You’re terrified that your kids are going to “get got” so you brood over them night and day, never taking into consideration that you perhaps didn’t “get got” and by some miracle you are reading this today.  Well, the world was safer then!  LOL No it wasn’t!  You were safer then because you weren’t so dang afraid!   We worry over not having enough money!  We stress over being too fat!  We need a newer, larger house; a better car; more vacations and much more wine!  In reality what we really need is to learn how to relax…  We need to concern ourselves with following our best laid plans and then simply letting be what’s gonna be.

If we didn’t have God as our Father then perhaps we would need to have some concern!  After all, the world is fraught with danger and difficulties.  But, when God is for me, who can be against me?  Hey, that sounded like a Bible verse!   God surely never intended for you and I to drive ourselves bananas trying to figure out all of life.  And we only try so hard to figure it all out because we are afraid!  We need to take a lesson from my grandson Braylon.  He is 100% in the moment and most of those moments are fun.  And this is the same four-year old that said God couldn’t give him strength because God didn’t have any hands!  LOL  You see young Braylon is so convinced that his Momma and Poppa will take good care of him, that he doesn’t have any time to worry!  You and I could learn from his example.  Surely God knows your hopes and dreams and surely He loves you enough to get you to them!  Surely!  Maybe we don’t get to them sooner because WE are in the way with all of our doubts and worries and fears.  We need to get out of the way!

I’m guessing that you have been living long enough now to recognize that, that worry plan is pointless.  All your sincere stress and anxiety has not gotten you one step closer to anything worth having, has it?  The laying awake in bed at night mentally rehearsing how the monsters in life were going to eat you or your loved ones, didn’t really stop them from getting you, did it?  No it didn’t because those monsters weren’t real to begin with!  Most of those dreadful monsters aren’t real and the real ones kinda get you when you least expect it anyway, right?  So, hey man, you need to relax…

You simply have to make up your mind to stop thinking about the things that give you stress.  Do not argue with them.  Do not try to figure them out!  Do not pass go and do not collect that $200 (worries).  The monopoly on right thought can only be obtained by refusing the wrong thought!  Not refusing it sends you directly to jail (mentally)!  OK maybe I took that too far – haha.. But seriously folks, try spending a little time out of that infernal worry zone and notice what happens to you.  The roof won’t cave in!  They won’t call and say you lost your job!  Calamity won’t overtake you!  Instead you will see what I saw so vividly!  Your mind will be relaxed and peaceful and that’s when the thinking really starts!

There’s nothing quite so satisfying as hanging out with your family, but even more so when you are there with them 100%.  God bless the family reunions and God bless the person that trusts Him enough to let all the rest go…