The other night, as I went to pick up some dear friends from the airport, I started playing a game with myself in the car.
I was calling it fearful mind, trusting mind
I find that when something arises that stimulates the mind to draw a response, there are two primary ways in which I respond; with fear and rationale, or with trust and curiosity. And oftentimes it's some combination of the two.
If I were to label these two polarities of the mind, it would be the conditioned mind, and the heart mind.
The first scenario this game was played with was the scenario of I’m running late, and there isn’t clear communication. So the key here is there’s uncertainty. My friend may not know what the situation is, and I don’t know what she is experiencing.
- A fearful rational mind may worry about the timing, and start thinking about what might be going wrong, or creating stories about things being out of alignment, and perhaps try to start figure out solutions to “fix” this “problem”
- A trusting curious mind knows that there is an alignment beyond what can be reasoned, and so trusts, and stays curious about what can be learned in this experience, and what other possibilities there are that may not yet be seen.
As I continued playing this game on the drive, I found more and more depth. I found a deeper ease with which I was able to see my fears and understand my ration, and I found a greater ease in settling into what I would call the heart mind, continuing to cultivate this space of trust and curiosity.
Moving forward, I’m choosing to cultivate more and more trust and curiosity in my life.
I’m curious about how this game might evolve, perhaps as an actual self and relational exercise to help cultivate more trust and curiosity, and I really trust in this process and trust in myself to follow through and continue to stay with this in a way that feels aligned and natural.
I'm also curious about what comes up for you as you read this. Have you found what I have shared to be true in your life, and is there anything that you enjoy doing to cultivate more trust and curiosity within your life?
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