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Find Peace: Take Power Away from Your Thoughts and Emotions

By Dr. Amy JohnsonSitting in Stillness

Slow down and everything you are chasing will come around and catch you. ~JohnDe Paola

My almost three year old, Willow, is obsessed with playing doctor.

She lies on the couch, hands down at her sides. She hands me a small flashlight and atoy frying pan (which Im told to pretend is a stethoscope) and orders, Check meout, Doctor Mommy!

She methodically points out every scratch, scrape, bruise, and freckle on her body.She tells me how much snot she feels in her nose and how many times she coughed,

sneezed, and hiccupped that day so that I can give her the most comprehensivetreatment possible.

After I go through the doctor motions to her satisfaction, she wants to know how herscratches, bruises, and hiccups will really go away. Since were only playing andmommy is not a real doctor, how will her perfect health be restored?

I tell her there is nothing she has to do. Her natural state is perfect health. Her bodywill tend to return there with no effort on her part.

Thats often, but not always, true of the physical body. Bodies always attempt toheal, but they dont always return to how they once were. A body is a machine witha roughly 80-year warranty. It is amazing and largely self- correcting, but its notfoolproof.

Minds, on the other hand, are different. I believe mental health and mental clarityare present in all of us, all of the time.

Sometimes we experience mental health and clarit y and sometimes we dont, justlike sometimes we experience sun and sometimes we dont. The sun is always therebehind the clouds. Mental clarity and wisdom are always there, behind our thoughts.

Just like the clouds will always part to reveal the sun, thoughts roll in and thoughtsroll out.

Your healthy mind will always return to a state of well- being if you dont interfere.

As it turns out, not interfering is easier said than done.

Stepping In

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Just shy of three, Willow already buys into the notion that humans can do lifebetter than the divine intelligence that created us.

She wasnt always this way.

Nine months ago when her brother was born, she was completely unconcernedwhen he cried. She looked at the adults in her life tripping over ourselves toquickly calm the crying baby as if we were crazy. She seemed to be saying, Babiescry, you know. Whats the problem?

But Willows brain is rapidly changing. Nine months later, shes in a different stageof development more intelligent, more verbal, more logical, more action oriented.

Now she wants to know why hes crying. What outside, external event caused hisemotion? (She already mistakenly believes that emotions are caused by external

events a misunderstanding she learned from every adult around her.)

She wants him to stop crying, and she believes there is something we can and shoulddo to make him stop.

When she looks at me hopeless and frustrated and says, Can you pleeease makeMiller stop crying? I tell her to just wait a minute. Unless he is hungry or in physicalpain, he cries only as long as he feels genuine emotion, which is never longer than aminute to two. Then a brand new emotion rushes in to take that ones place.

At only nine months old, Miller isnt verbal; so when he feels emotion, its clean. Itswiftly runs its course through his body, unimpeded by thought.

He doesnt hold grudges. He doesnt have a hard time forgiving. He doesntremember the past or worry about the future. He just exists in the now, feeling whathe feels, before moving on to whatever is next.

Stepping in and fixing a thought or emotion is rarely necessary. There is nothing tofix when you allow them to simply roll in and roll out, just like the clouds.

There is simply nothing to do but wait.

Beyond Thought

Nearly three-year-old Willow has a lot of advantages over nine-month-old Miller.

She can communicate verbally. She can solve more complex problems. She isstarting to understand jokes and sarcasm. Her brain can coordinate jumping andrunning and cartwheeling.

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And nine months old, Miller has a lot of advantages over Willow.

He is more tapped into the wisdom that lies beneath thought. His true state is moreaccessible to him.

He lives entirely in the present moment, in a perpetual state of readiness to respondto whatever comes his way.

One isnt better than the other. Im certainly not knocking the importance or the funof having higher intelligence.

Its just that ideally, we could use our minds in both ways. We could use logic andwords when we need them, and then wipe the slate clean and return to our naturalstate of innate wisdom when clarity and peace are what we want.

Using intellect and wisdom gives us a much deeper connection between mind and

spirit.

Wiping the Slate Clean

How do you tap into the clarity and wisdom that lies underneath thought? How canyou wipe the slate clean?

Some people meditate. Some people take a walk, practice an art, or take a nap. Anyof those can do the trick if you enjoy them, but you dont have to do any of them.

In my experience, the best way to return back to that default state where my babyboy lives is to simply understand the nature of thought.

Understand that thought is fluid and that you are not your thoughts. You aresomething much, much bigger.

As many spiritual teachers say, you are the one noticing your thoughts. You are thenonphysical force that is able to sit back and notice life happening around you. Youcan observe thought happening inside of you and remain aware of and detachedfrom it all

When you lean back into your spiritual nature and allow your human psychology(thoughts and emotions) to simply do what they do, you are free. You can watch theendlessly fascinating movie that is your life taking place without getting emotionallyhooked into it. Youre much bigger than that movie.

When you dont cling to thought as if it is true, the slate is wiped clean and yourmind goes back to its natural, peaceful state.

You have to be willing to be wrong about everything you know.

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Its then that you catch a glimpse of the innate perfection in the system. You tap intothe peace and clarity that lies beneath thought, and you find yourself there.

It doesnt matter how old you are or how long youve been away.

Its effortless for Miller, but its accessible to all of us. Whether you were there justmonths ago, like Willow, or its been decades, peace and clarity are always only athought awa