(Photo of person with tattooed arms gripping head from Blake Cheek on Unsplash)

... AND GET ONTO HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL

I can already hear someone out there mumbling about denial or spiritual bypassing. Please just come with me on this ride. Afterward, I’ll drop you back off where we started, and if you want to carry on with what you were doing before … you get to do that.

Note that this writing includes a 3-min audio I made to support you in how to think and speak about how you want to feel.

What do we typically do with a topic that’s problematic to us? The topic where we’re not where we want to be and we really REALLY want it to change?

WE STAY ON IT.

We’re taught that’s a good thing. It’s the right thing. It’s how we’ll be sure to change it. 3 examples of our problem topics and how we stay on it follow.

Finances: we keep looking at the bank account, reviewing spendings, fretting over how else to make money; we keep an eye on news of the economy.
Relationship: we keep going over what we’ve done wrong, compare ourselves to what others are doing around us, get caught up in the sorry way the song or movie makes us feel, stalk an ex or a new interest on social media.
Job: we think about how underused our skills & talents are, worry about the dynamics with boss or colleagues that make things problematic, stay on top of job notices and what’s happening in our field.

My favorite current phrase is No no no no no no no no no.

Side trip: Check out this quick clip from the film Get Out and just stop when she’s all done saying no. (In this part, we found the nice black woman creepy before we learned that the creep effect came from—SPOILER ALERT—her body being occupied by an old white woman.) (If you watch a couple of seconds beyond the no, you get the priceless way our protagonist is looking at her.)

So here’s what I invite you to instead of staying on it.

GET OFF THE TOPIC.

Look away. Do not give it your time and energy. Don’t speak about it. Interrupt your own thoughts about it—obviously (but let’s be explicit) especially when thinking about it feels bad and starts taking you to nefarious places (like finding yourself wrong or not enough, predicting horrible futures for yourself, comparing yourself to others or imagining what they think about you, etc).

By staying on it, you think you’re minding what needs minding, but you’re really reinforcing what’s wrong. As Abraham-Hicks loves to point out, you’re focusing on what’s missing, what’s lacking, what’s not here yet—when you think you’re focusing on what you want.

Quick reminder of the most basic basic basic Law of Attraction (LOA) teaching: What you focus on expands. Or, what you rehearse and review, you get more of.

And what you’re focused on is the problem.

Even holding something like it’s a problem and constantly looking for solutions is focusing on the problem. So what expands—or WHAT YOU GET MORE OF—is the problem. I have this problem. This is a problem. I can’t figure out this problem.

Or worse: I’m doing everything right and there’s still this problem. Then it just all feels like a mind-fuck and you start to feel life is against you. Or you turn that problem-focused gaze to every realm of life and start finding it all wrong, and you were just kidding yourself about all you thought was improving, and ... Let’s quit that.

Okay, so let’s say you want to run an experiment here (I highly recommend thinking in terms of experiments) and actually practice getting off the topic. What would you focus ON if you go OFF that?

FOCUS ON HOW YOU FEEL AND HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL.

How you feel tells you where you are with the topic now. Notice you don’t need to analyze thought to just know that, right now, how you feel with this whole topic is

• anxious or fearful
• riddled with doubts or worries
• heavy
• discouraged or defeated
• overwhelmed
• unhappy
• incapable or unteachable
• less than or not enough

How you want to feel is easy to identify. What would you feel like if the topic were not a problem and did not require cracking a code or tensing up to give it your full focus to make sure you tame this beast???

I began with negative phrasing, there, so now let’s flip it and get more to the point.

How would you feel, related to this topic in your life,

• if it looked just how you wanted it to look?
• if conditions were just as you wanted them?
• if you loved yourself in this realm of life and felt like you were rocking it?

I’ve made a 3-min audio to demonstrate how you might think about it. I made this during a session with a client using the topic of not liking the body you’re in because you think it’s too heavy. If you get off the topic and stop focusing on what’s wrong with it, and how to change its size, and what those imagined or perceived others think of it, then this audio gives you words for how to frame things instead, focused on your feeling state. (Hey, start at the 55-second mark if you JUST want the things you could say to yourself to grope toward how you want to feel. There’s some preliminary stuff that repeats some of the above.)

Let’s take a moment to look at WHAT TERRIFIES PEOPLE ABOUT THIS TACTIC.

In short, the fear is that then YOU’LL BE STUCK WITH THE PROBLEM. If you make yourself feel good now—or feel how you’d feel if all this realm of life were just as you’d like it--then you’ll just stay put right where you are.

Okay, well, if that happens, at least you’ll be a fool who feels much better.

HOWEVER, what’s more likely to happen is that your life will gradually (and sometimes very quickly) start to match how you feel.

Your behaviors will match what you want more of.

It will be easier to head toward what you want more of because you’ll feel better and more hopeful.

That’s how LOA actually works. I invite you to play with it. In summary: Lighten up, quit thinking there’s a problem, look away from what’s wrong, and let the work and play be about feeling how you want to feel.

Bonus: how you feel NOW alerts you to whether you’re focused in the right place or not. If not, please head back toward how you want to feel. Say things to yourself like I said in the audio. Get off the topic of what’s wrong.

Has this concern popped in yet? YEAH, BUT YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO DO SOME THINGS IN THE PRACTICAL, MATERIAL WORLD RELATED TO THIS TOPIC.

Cool. Of course. That’s reality. I’m not saying don’t do stuff. Just do it when you feel good. Do it when you feel how you want to feel. And DO NOT TRY TO WORK ON THINGS AND MOVE THEM FORWARD WHEN YOU’RE BACK IN THE OLD PROBLEM MENTALITY AND THE FEELING STATE THAT GOES WITH THAT. And if you started working on things while feeling good and you even START to feel bad again (at the first whiff of feeling bad), get off the topic again.

Got it?

Now we’ve come full circle. If you’re still worried about denial or spiritual bypassing or losing track of the problem and being stuck with it—now’s your chance to just say Jaya’s full of shit and I just want to do what I’ve been doing.

If you get what I’m offering here and you’d like to get it better, a great old LOA-oriented blog post to review is Are you a match to the problem or the solution?

Love & blessings, Jaya

This is a photo of me, Jaya, at Pemaquid Point in Maine. An amazing spot on the planet.

Can anything halt a running rumination, never mind dissolve it? I maintain that a good breath plus a good question has potent reset power. I’ll give you three footholds to this here:

1. A story about reaching for a question
2. An important distinction (clear thought processes vs. rumination)
3. Bullet point examples of good questions to reach for

In a hurry? Skip to #3 and grab some potentially arresting questions for next time the mind tries to run away with you.

1. A story
I recently went to the coast of Maine for the love of sea and summer and the place itself. It’s so lovely to breathe that clean air full of salt—and consciously breathing is my favorite reset.

One day, I got into a muddy line of rumination. You know when you throw a whole relationship into question? That. Reality: sunshine and blue sky. My mental space: a dank, festering atmosphere for some putrid specimen to grow unimpeded and keep spawning hands to palpate for problems. (Yeah, yuck.)

Standing outside to feel my feet on the earth (I was going for grounding to move out of my head), I heard a bird call I couldn’t identify. From grounding, the simple act of connecting to one of my senses brought me more fully back to presence. That’s when I took a breath that I actually paid attention to (coming closer to presence still), and I reached for a question.

Let me add that I was already aware of the line of thinking that kept reasserting itself, and I had already consciously noted some wise stuff. (It hadn’t fully taken yet, but I don’t consider that a problem; I trust the process.) These things I knew:

• what I was chewing on mentally didn’t actually require my attention in the moment
• there was no need to visit the future to check on (made-up and inaccurate and unwanted) outcomes
• no good could come of mental travel down the various roads that would get me to where I didn’t want to go
• there was nothing to evaluate
• there was nothing to decide
• there was nothing to map out or plan
• there was nothing to do differently right now or today

So I reached for a question and this came right in: What if I needed nothing from her?

Nailed it. I felt an immediate and pure release. This could be a good daily question to ask the self about anyone close, and it’s especially brilliant for a romantic/primary partner.

Because you already know this, don’t you? You actually don’t need anything from anybody. The best work of unsticking from what you think you need from another (certainly the beloved) really happens between you and you, and you can leave them out of it. They don’t need to show up in any way (except however they do) for you to keep letting go of wanting to control them or of expecting them to make you comfortable. (Um, and rumination doesn’t help.)
 
The question reset me and I had a great day from there (peninsula, beach, lobster) and felt love and joy with the human being in question. The pure truth of needing nothing from another in order to be well, happy, safe, in love—anything—came in so fully for me that my mind didn’t even try to pick the rumination back up.

Now, you know the mind will typically try. In my case, on that day, it had robotically picked up a small set of repeating thoughts for at least an hour with factory-set arms of steel. I just don’t let this sort of thing move in for the day, so note that I was already in my process. Most important, I hadn’t been believing those thoughts. I had been witnessing them and telling myself truer things. So this probably set me up to be more open to the power of the question. It’s a useful thing to practice, that not believing your own thoughts.

A good question, even if it doesn’t just dissolve the whole thing, can throw a wrench in the works of a rumination on auto-pilot. The question creates an opening, or a sense of possibility that you could actually let it go. That’s pretty amazing in itself. You can best expand that sense of possibility through presence—not with further thinking.

2. An important distinction
It helps to clearly make this distinction: yes, you can meet challenging mental stuff through clear thinking processes of inquiry or contemplation; rumination is not that! When you give full focus to straightening out your thinking in a time you’ve designated for that—perhaps with a clear helper or a tool like The Work of Byron Katie—that’s a productive, helpful way to meet the mind. Rumination just hijacks your thinking. Rumination means mindless mental chewing as you do other things. It’s no good. It robs you of presence, expands whatever anxiety or emotion matches the content, compounds confusion, and further furrows the brow.
 
Want to play more with presence? It’s not hard. Keep coming back to the breath, and use grounding and checking in with your senses to connect to here and now. It takes rumination-thwarting focus to keep coming back to now, to what the moment is feeding you through the body and its senses. You might call it hard, but it’s not. It’s a practice, and it’s worth repeating (while the repeating thoughts that take over if you don’t do this are truly of no use to you).

3. Some questions
There are so many good questions to ask yourself. Just reach for it. Try out a few (without necessarily answering them), just to see how they hit you. You’ll know in your body when you’ve got one worth keeping in view for a minute. The right question may need no answering either: the truth it points to is self-evident.

• What else is possible here?
• What if there’s no problem?
• What if there’s nothing to fault myself for?
• Is this the right time to assess or evaluate [make a plan, make a decision, etc.]?
• Is there anything I can do about this now?
• Is there something for me to let go of here?
• What’s the invitation here?
• If [I pretend or experiment with believing] it’s a friendly Universe, how is this all perfect for my growth and healing?
• What’s my priority right now?
• What’s actually important here
• Can I accept this as reality and accept that reality isn’t ideal?
• Can I welcome myself to the human race here?
• Must I control this?
• Can I release them to their life, and release myself to mine?
• What if I felt this instead of thinking about it? (What if I felt the sensations around this rumination and let go of the story and the figuring?)
• What’s actually happening in my world here and now?
• How far away did I just go in time and space?

That last one can actually be fun. I call it the Here and Now game. It allows you to get curious about or fascinated by where you were in time (years away, sometimes!) and what place you were in beyond your current physical location (an ocean away, perhaps). It’s a playful way to call yourself back to the moment, your actual reality. Take a conscious breath and ask, How far away did I just go in time and space? Could be all you need to foil the rumination.

Love & blessings, Jaya

Go back to another post on Rumination Relief.

Below are categories of positive rumination, with examples. Scan them, if you wish, and come closer to the ones you’re most drawn to or need the most help with. Use all of these categories with an intention of self-soothing. Notice that you actually know how to soothe yourself and you’re able to soothe yourself.

DO NOT make feeling better a requirement for sticking with self-soothing. Do it for its own sake. Do it because it’s more likely to eventually calm you and make you hopeful and clear and able to act--while going back to negative ruminations or self-attack is likely to make you feel worse and get stuck where you don’t want to be. Cultivate kind, self-supporting rumination for the sake of not abandoning yourself. Do it as practice. Do it to be kind; to vote for life, healing, evolution; to come closer to love.
 

Connecting to magic: Notice signs and symbols; review synchronicity, echoes, repetition. Let yourself be wowed by the gorgeous timing or aligned meetings you didn’t orchestrate. Make much of how life keeps surprising you. Revel in the wonder of super-cool stuff and creatures and facts—amazing stuff is actually REAL on this planet. Let the beauty of it all touch you. Laugh at absurd happenings and interconnections. Be fascinated and amazed by how the parts of your life and people in it are woven together by an intelligence greater than you—an intelligence that’s interesting and loving and has a fabulous sense of humor.
 
Trusting in or experimenting with a friendly Universe: This is a human experience, not something personal. I’m willing to be a human being having this human experience. This is not punishment—I don’t live in a punitive Universe. I don’t need to understand why this is happening; I need to get present and meet it well. I can believe I’m guided and have all the support I need. I can watch for all that’s revealed along the way and trust the journey. I can believe I [anyone, a group, the planet] will gain from going through this.
 
Lemonade-making (subset of friendly U above): [First one’s from Byron Katie:] I’ve been spared. Whatever or whoever falls away no longer belongs in my life to support my current level of healing and evolution. There will be lessons in this I can’t see yet; perhaps I can name one now—some likely or obvious one. Nothing is going wrong here (besides that I’m not getting what I wanted when and how I wanted it). This is a great opportunity to practice what I’ve been wanting to practice. I’m building some muscles right now, and muscles are appealing. This is a chance to trust life, to show up for what’s actually happening, to value open and shut doors equally as part of my ongoing guidance. This is an opportunity to draw and hold boundaries. There’s no problem with what’s happening. (Note the latter is true even if people are hurting or dying—not to deny death or suffering but to accept anything as part of human life on planet earth, and to believe in an evolutionary thrust operative even it looks like it’s going backward.)
 
Looking for all that supports you: Start simple and get basic. I have food, water, air, a roof overhead, ground underfoot. My mattress supports me; this pillow supports me; the couch supports me. This land supports me. The beauty of this place supports me. My love of this mission supports me. I have a working phone, and there are 3 people I could text or call if I wanted to; if I left them a message they’d receive it in right time with caring. I can see one thing I could do right now that would make me feel better physically or emotionally; I can see one thing to do that would support me to feel better inhabiting my space. Certain people occupying certain roles in my life support me. I can think of one thing to try or think about differently that I want to practice and/or that has served me before. Someone kind is nearby or has been recently. Strangers have helped me or could. The unexpected could happen, and I’m open. I can remember a specific time the unexpected did happen. I’m not lacking support just because I hurt. I’m not lacking support just because I don’t know what to do or can’t see into the future. I’m not lacking support just because I’ve made mistakes or think I’m making one now. Actually, I do have all I need right now.
 
Cultivating the belief that you’re fine as you are: There’s nothing wrong with me. Whatever I’m feeling is okay. There’s nothing to fix. Source sees me as an entirely valid and beautiful being on an entirely valid and beautiful journey. I’d like to see myself as Source sees me. I’d like to see myself through lenses of love and compassion and ease and forgiveness. I think I can get better at that; in fact, I already have. All will be revealed as I go and I’m okay right now. I’ve been here before and I didn’t get stuck here. It’s okay to be a work in progress—that’s in fact all that’s possible. It’s okay to be exactly where I am now on my path at this moment in time—and because it’s impermanent, it will yield to something else. What if there’s nothing to fault myself for? If I’m in a shame spiral or self-reproach, the thing to correct is the shame or the reproach; I don’t need to be corrected; I am not a problem. If I’m not acting right now or if I keep putting that off, maybe it’s not time for it. Maybe I’m working up to it. Maybe I’d work up to it better being kind to myself. I’m fine.
 
Giving yourself a bit of credit: Consider and name things you’ve completed recently, things you feel good about, things you did well, things you’ve achieved, things you’ve understood more deeply, new insights or aha moments. Consider something recent you handled better than ever or interrupted or remembered earlier. I’ve come a long way. I’m doing better with this than I used to. I can think of things I’ve cleaned up or transformed that I wasn’t sure I could change or that I know human beings can go into denial about or get stuck in. I’m willing to look at myself. I’m willing to witness myself right now and to get kinder in the witnessing. What I’m feeling or believing now really better represents my younger self. You might imagine sitting with or holding that one now and giving them/her/him messages of love and reassurance; let them in on good things to come.
 
Expanding into “I’m amazing”: I actually like myself—I like my sensibilities and my preferences and my skills and my talents. I like how I look, how I use my body, how I feel things. I love how the Universal intelligence [love] [goodness] [life force] moves through me. I can think of things I’ve done that are really cool and kind of amazing. I love what I’m cultivating and moving toward right now. I can think of things I’ve lived through that made me a strong and kind of badass human being. I like some of my current life choices and experiences and ways of being that support and express my badassery. I can think of ways I’ve loved well and truly made choices for good. I love how I’m loving now. It just keeps getting better. I keep getting better. I’m amazing. I can think of things I’ve created or been part of or led that I truly value. I appreciate my values. I can think of things I’ve learned about or learned to do that I’m kind of in awe of. I like how I feel right now. I like who I am right now. [Last one’s from Louise Hay:] I love myself, I approve of myself.
 
Being here now: There’s nowhere else I need to be; there’s nothing else I should be doing. The Universe has got that right now and I don’t need to give it my attention. That’s their business, not mine—I release them to their life, I release myself to mine. Ah, in this exact moment, this is what I see (hear, taste, smell, feel). I don’t need to check on the future right now. I get to focus on the one task of the moment, not the outcome or other parts of the project. There’s nothing to asses or evaluate right now. If I’m stuck in something past, I’m the one holding on to it: the Universe and all of life has moved on. If someone else is stuck in a past we had together, I can leave them to it; it’s up to me to move on and cultivate my own presence here and now. I can feel the breath moving through me. Right now, I can connect to the felt, sensory experience of the breath. I feel that it feels good, it calms me, it brings me to the core of my being. The breath connects me to now and brings me to my body as it is now, as I inhabit it now. I’m willing to be here now.
 
Going general (from Abraham-Hicks): I don’t need to figure this out right now. I’ve (we’ve) gotten through similar or worse and I’m (we’re) wiser and more equipped for this. All will be revealed in right time. I’ll know what to do in the moment. This is all human stuff and life stuff—not personal to me. This is a normal human experience to go through and I’m willing to go through it. If I don’t know, I don’t need to know right now. It’ll all come out in the wash. I can pan out to eagle view and get out of stressful mouse-view. I can leave the details aside and keep my overall vision in view. I don’t need to understand where the money will come from—things get financed and my understanding of and relationship with money can keep changing. I have time—we all have time; there’s no shortage of time. I know how to prioritize. I just need to locate the next thing to do. I can aim roughly in the right direction and trust in my ability to course-correct. I can believe I’m guided even in the midst of uncertainty.
 
Soothing yourself could include bits from all the categories above, and if you can’t put a topic down, there’s nothing like going general (just above) to diffuse the stress of it. Mental self-soothing or self-talk that makes you feels better involves giving yourself a string of messages to remind yourself that nothing’s going wrong, that you’re equipped to meet what’s happening, that all is well, that you’re guided, that your needs are met and you’re safe, that everything and everyone are in the care of a greater intelligence than yours, that love prevails.
 
Love & blessings, Jaya

Use what you gained to clean up your messiest stuff that won't seem to go away.
 
I want to invite you to what you already know and show you a simple way to apply it to the thing that mystifies you—that area of life where you sometimes call yourself hopeless and you shake your head (or fist) (or entire self, mentally, like a mean cartoon parent). In this brief post, I’ll show you a quick, potent way to frame what you’ve already cleared or conquered or mastered (perhaps surprising your old self) and bring it to the stubborn spot. It literally involves making 2 lists. That's it.
 
What's your rough spot? Money, for me, is that tricky life challenge, the thing that’s been (and continues to be) a life’s journey to bring into alignment. I’ve gotten okay with this: all human beings have something, and I’m a human being. I invite you to get okay with the thing that most throws you off, and to apply the following trick to that: relationship, sex, food, health, your body, pain, work/career, socializing, some creative pursuit or field of knowledge, emotional well-being, communication, letting go—whatever it is.
 
What I saw, in one of those inspired flashes (you know the ones), was that the same mindsets I’d learned and consciously taught myself to hold toward food could be true for money, so I wrote down some statements that roughly express mindsets I’ve adopted with food, knowing they’d be true for money too. I made this first list seeking to consciously focus just on food (as best I could).
 
Why food for me? This is the best point of departure for the exercise: something that was somewhat problematic earlier in life (and probably along the way, perhaps even after some major clean-up), but that you've been able to bring into alignment (perhaps some time ago, that you've likely continued to make adjustments around as you go).
 
You’re not a newbie. Honor your own experience and wisdom gained. Consider what you’ve cleaned up, healed, gotten a handle on that used to be not so pretty or not so easy to manage. Make your equivalent list from the food list that follows, using language that feels right to you. These statements express what's real and true for me now that did not use to be:

• I’m willing to give time and energy to my healthy relationship with food.
• I’m willing to use resources to get my hands on good food (through shopping, gardening, bartering, receiving).
• I’m willing to prepare food that truly feeds me.
• I’m willing to clean up around food (as in taking care of dishes, leftovers, compost).
• I’m willing to let food nourish me.
• I’m willing to make healthy food choices.
• I’m willing to enjoy food, to relish it, to let it bring me pleasure.
• I’m willing to eat the right amounts of food.
• I’m willing to notice when I’m off with food and course-correct (without attacking myself).
• I’m willing to eat consciously.
• I’m willing to love food.
• I’m willing to let food love me.
• I’m willing to distinguish between fake and real self-care around food.
• I’m willing to keep growing a relationship with food, tweaking as I go, responding to the realities of the moment—as opposed to running on old ideas, holding on to obsolete concepts of what does and doesn’t work for me, insisting on the old stories of food, or of me and food, that actually don’t fit anymore.
• I’m still willing to eliminate foods that I love, introduce foods that aren’t familiar, organize my current diet around what makes me feel good now, do whatever I need to do to maximize my well-being in relation to food.
• I’m willing to let food be guilt-free.
• I’m willing to let food taste good.
• I’m willing to be functional with food, healthy with food, happy with food.
• I share food with others in an easy, loving way. This brings me joy.
• I’m willing to have a history with food. I’m willing to be on an evolutionary journey with food. I’m willing to keep getting current with food.
• I’m so happy for how blessed I am with food in my life.
• I love food. I’m willing to love food.
• I love myself and my perfectly imperfect relationship with food.

Once I had this list, it was easy to go through it again substituting the word money anywhere the word food appeared (with small tweaks here and there, where a slightly different wording made more sense). I sought to feel each assertion again as if it were brand new—and it truly was; it was downright illuminating to imagine bringing to money the same lessons learned with food.
 
So here we go again. But not again, really—for the first time. This is the first application of kinder, simpler thoughts of allowing and aligning, in this case with that stubborn, still problematic life challenge—money for me and, for you, whatever you know it to be:

• I’m willing to give time and energy to my healthy relationship with money.
• I’m willing to use resources to get my hands on good money (through working in my most aligned way, opening to unexpected sources, investing, receiving).
• I’m willing to prepare for spending and receiving money in ways that truly feed me.
• I’m willing to clean up around money (as in taking care of banking tasks, bills, taxes).
• I’m willing to let money nourish me.
• I’m willing to make healthy money choices.
• I’m willing to enjoy money, to relish it, to let it bring me pleasure.
• I’m willing to charge and spend the right amounts of money.
• I’m willing to notice when I’m off with money and course-correct (without attacking myself).
• I’m willing to receive money consciously.
• I’m willing to love money.
• I’m willing to let money love me.
• I’m willing to distinguish between fake and real self-care around money.
• I’m willing to keep growing a relationship with money, tweaking as I go, responding to the realities of the moment—as opposed to running on old ideas, holding on to obsolete concepts of what does and doesn’t work for me, insisting on the old stories of money, or of me and money, that actually don’t fit anymore.
• I’m still willing to eliminate spending that I love, introduce money strategies that aren’t familiar, organize my current revenue and spending around what makes me feel good now, do whatever I need to do to maximize my well-being in relation to money.
• I’m willing to let money be guilt-free.
• I’m willing to let money feel good.
• I’m willing to be functional with money, healthy with money, happy with money.
• I share money with others in an easy, loving way. This brings me joy.
• I’m willing to have a history with money. I’m willing to be on an evolutionary journey with money. I’m willing to keep getting current with money.
• I’m so happy for how blessed I am with money in my life.
• I love money. I’m willing to love money.
• I love myself and my perfectly imperfect relationship with money.

 
That’s it. For me, this was profound. I took my time feeling it, and it gave me a great sense of expansiveness, relief, opening to new possibility (all of which I consider signs of alignment from my guidance system!). Do it for real with your substitutions. Do it out loud or in writing, not just in your head. Nail it. Clearly bring to view the opening to a new, wider, more beautiful, perhaps truly liberating vista.
 
I want to close with expressing appreciation for Michael Beckwith and his teachings about radical visualizing/visioning that begins with feeling into and getting centered in some aspect of life where you feel great (connected, allowing, in the flow), then visiting your scary place while you hold that energy; and for Sarah McCrumm and her teachings about money, which opened me to the crazy idea of easy, healthy, sweet connections possible for me in that thorny realm.
 
 Love & blessings, Jaya

This is BRIEF—not because it rhymes so nicely with RELIEF, but because—springtime.

 So take it in like a big clearing breath, then run play outside. (Addendum: Or in the time of Corona, carry on in the best way you see to LIVE YOUR LIFE.)

You know that when the mind is chewing and belching in a rambling rumination, you can't be fully present to the brilliant buzz and birdsong (or to WHATEVER'S actually going on here and now).

Let's cut through the illusions that keep rumination in place:

• You think you're going to figure it out if you keep going over it mentally.

NOPE. You're going to wear it out, like overchewed gum, and get no further with it, as the hamster on the wheel makes no linear progress. (Gum and hamsters! Nailed the mixed metaphor.)

• You think you'll get free of the story if you review it again.

NO! You just REINFORCE the story—even with no new arguments found. The old evidence, cemented with review, is plenty strong enough to hold your narrative in place.

• You think poring over the issue will clear the wretched way it makes you feel.

ARE YOU KIDDING? You only amplify the feeling with each related thought! And the intensifying feeling makes you reach for each next thought in this line of thinking. It's an endless feedback loop.

• You think you're being responsible by mentally latching onto a topic that truly MUST be addressed!

WAIT, love, have you, too, gone mad? There's nothing responsible or righteous about redundant, pointless revisiting of what keeps you feeling rotten. Global warming, your hanging-by-a-thread relationship, racial injustice, that puzzle at work, transgender issues, all that could go wrong for your kid in a heartbeat—none of that will be properly met or creatively handled through rumination!

• You think the mental review will keep you safe [in control, peaceful, socially acceptable—insert here your ego-wish of choice].

SIGH. You already know that won't work.

Try these 3 steps toward getting OUT of rumination:

1. Get in the habit of witnessing the mind (with no judgement, please—or witness the judgment too, and seek to release it).
2. Once you catch rumination in the moment (kindly, because you're not judging, right?), try interrupting it. Stop mid-sentence. Leave the thought incomplete.
3. Redirect the mind. You might simply bring it to presence, using your working senses: What do I see, hear, smell, breathing in the springtime air?

One more metaphor to illustrate those 3 steps:
 To go with gum and hamsters, let's add a dog on a leash. Notice (witness) when it goes for the disgusting random foodstuff, interrupt it at once (no need to think anything through!), and redirect—head ANY other way. (Argh, canine, was that even ever edible? Argh, mind, aren't you so disgusted with this endless review of what needs no reviewing?)

May your communing with all things spring unfold in glorious presence.

Love & blessings, Jaya

Here's another post I made on dissolving rumination with a good breath and a good question.