I Visited the Grand Canyon but All I Saw was Mule Poop

I Visited the Grand Canyon but All I Saw was Mule Poop

Most people make completely unconscious choices regarding where they place their attention, and on the internal stories they are telling themselves.  Every second of life, we place our attention somewhere.  You look at your back yard and see all the dog poop and weeds. You look at your back yard and notice the hummingbirds are there and the smell of jasmine is in the air. The poop and weeds are still there. Some make a quick mental note to clean up the yard while smiling at the beauty present. Others never notice the hummers and the jasmine. While others notice neither, consumed with the future, they sigh in sadness that they do not have a Jacuzzi or a vegetable garden and walk away without cleaning up what needs to be cleaned, or enjoying what they do have in the garden at this very moment. And there are those that walk into the garden, and this sparks a past memory of a beloved cat that used to sun in the garden and has translated to the rainbow bridge.  They do not see the garden in the present, or even dream of a future for their garden so lost are they in the sorrows of the past.

Consciousness is complicated in humans.  It is difficult, if not impossible to “stay present” if you are an emotional or mental “hoarder,” and most people are hoarders.  People hang onto hurts, bury emotions, self-medicate, or if you are “new age” or perhaps a yoga diva slather feel good platitudes on top of your hoard like organic almond butter, which can make almost anything taste better… for now.  You cannot just notice the good and ignore the bad. If you do that, the dog poop and the weeds will grow and take over the garden. It may take decades, but then the cleanup becomes a nightmare.  You need to balance clean up with appreciation, letting go, with savoring memories and moments.  And like tending to a garden, this is daily work.

Where do you start? To begin with, start to track (write down, either throughout the day, or at the end of each day—like brushing your teeth) WHERE you have placed your attention throughout the day. This practice is used by a myriad of Spiritual practices as well as psychology. You cannot shift or change without first coming to terms with the specifics of what you are practicing now, daily.  Unconscious habits have to be brought into consciousness. This is already a brave step. People often place their attention somewhere to distract them from uncomfortable emotions, life circumstances or event. It is a form of self-soothing and there is nothing wrong with this and this kind of distraction can be a tool for recovery.  However, this kind of distraction is done unconsciously it can become a form of self-medication, denial, avoidance, deflection.  Tracking where you place your attention can make you conscious enough to bring up emotions that you might have been avoiding.  Track that as well… that is the dog poop in your garden.  Again, nothing wrong with that, but you don’t want to let it build up to the point of being overwhelming.

On the other side of the scale, you don’t want to go from hoarding to compulsive cleaning, which is the opposite sides of the same coin.  If you start to obsess about cleaning up (dog poop, or your own shortcomings—which are endless and a part of the totality of who you are) you will miss the hummers and the jasmine. Track  where your attention goes, with gentle compassion and with humor. You don’t brush your teeth every day cursing their color or if they are crooked (at least I hope you don’t!). You brush them as part of loving yourself, as part of your daily regimen of self-care. Approach this task the same way. There is no outcome here. You are simply establishing new better self-care habits that will seriously impact the quality of your daily life. Gently track where you attention has been going every day. Gently post reminders (fridge, bathroom, car dash, notes on your computer etc) to now weave into paying attention to the good in your everyday life…. the hummers and jasmine. You can also do this by adding a mindfulness bell app to your phone. When it goes off, stop and breathe three breaths. As you do this, give thanks….. for your good health, for your income/job, for your friends, for having clean air, enough to eat, for not being blind, for your car.  Start to create a new habit of noticing what IS working in you, and in your life. This is not to deny any hardships, challenges or difficult emotions, but rather to balance out the picture.

Meditation helps. If you cannot meditate, start with the practice above.  Be advised that often this work cannot be done without help….. at least at first. It is difficult to catch your old habits as they are so ingrained you cannot even question them as perhaps off base.  Often I give someone a Reading. Later they call and say “what you said was going to happen, didn’t happen.”  I tell someone they will be doing much better financially and work will improve.   They call and say, nope, didn’t happen.  However after a discussion, it turns out finances ARE better, and work HAS improved but their outlook and their internal story painted a picture that reality didn’t match. They wanted to be a boss, and to make more money.  So they compared the Reading to their pre-conceived notion of what that would look like rather than being able to notice what actually did happen. We talk and they finally realize that finances did improve because their partner (or adult child living at home)  is now bringing in money….. and that work did improve because their job description changed and it is now much more fun (and they could never handle the pressure and overtime required to be a boss, at least not now).  So while the Reading was describing the Grand Canyon, the person only saw mule poop and it took another session to help the person become “present” and to change where they placed their attention.  I had to point out they were looking at their story were pissed that life was not matching the story in their head,  and ignoring what was really happening that was good, even great.  This is very typical.  So again, be advised, this is simply a blog…… not a solution.  If this work was easy to do….. more people would be doing it.

Just like some people can diet and exercise alone, most cannot.  If you find yourself tracking more mule poop than noticing the grandiosity of the Grand Canyon, consider studying and working with Life Path Healings, or another resource person.  Life challenging for sure.  The challenges are filled with beauty as well as exertion.  If you are not finding moments of joy and humor, if you are “keeping busy” to keep away emotional demons, please consider working with someone to get rebalanced. Denial (being overly positive, working hard at it) and depression are the same coin.  Balance is the ability to feel sad, depressed, and to feel joyful and grateful, all in one day.  To be balanced is to be centered enough to feel it all and rejoice in all that your life has to offer and to stop living in the stories in your head.

Journey On.