Summertime can be busy! As I said goodbye to our most recent visitors, my mind immediately perused it’s latest to-do list. First on a Monday for me is sitting down to write my blog to all my dear readers like you. As I sat down to check this task off my list, the blank computer screen stared back at me. What happened to all those great ideas that percolate in my mind everyday? Why didn’t I write them down? Time is ticking… my list is looming. Nothing.

I was reminded of a great discussion that came up in last week’s mindfulness class: give space to problems and they tend to solve themselves. When we are stressed and anxious it’s like looking through a tunnel, pinched off from the wider world where our ideas and imagination can’t reach us.

So, I dropped my list and went to yoga. There on my mat, breathing through an intense froggy pose (if you’ve done frog you know what I mean), my thoughts said “Stay the course. Without fear”. Instantly my body relaxed and melted into the pose without pulling away and contracting. Voila, this blog rose up in my mind, a complete divine download. And I was available for it. By opening into fear we go through it.

Have you ever noticed that great ideas come when we are happy, relaxed, free and daydreaming? I have. That’s when we have access to our whole brain. We can see the possibilities of the big picture.

Giving a problem ‘space’ aligns you with your greater, wiser self. It’s where you are not pinched off by strangling thoughts. It’s where your subconscious mind has freedom to seek resolution without the ‘smallness’ of our mind getting involved. In effect, you are getting out of your own way.

You don’t have to go to yoga. You can breathe, garden, run, bake, all with the awareness of letting go and relaxing into the pulse of life that will take you where you need to go. Sound easy? Not always… we are so used to doing, fixing and figuring things out, that to surrender even just for 2-3 deep breaths can feel like a loss of control (which it is, really, as we never had much control to begin with).

The mind creates fear that stops creativity in it’s tracks.  Stressed about something? Try letting it go for now and get absorbed in something else. Through non-striving we let go of the oars and paddle downstream to unlimited possibility.

Feel free to leave a comment below if this resonates with you in any way,

Have a great week!

Madeleine