03/06/2025
With mindfulness practice, you eventually tame, calm and befriend that bucking bronco of a mind, gently taking the reins and steering it where you want. If you whip or treat a horse cruelly it will most likely throw you into the dirt and probably stamp on you for luck. If you're gentle with it, soothing it, giving it a little stroke, a shard of straw and lovingly shouting 'whoa', it will eventually calm down. Same with the mind; if you're self-critical and demanding, not only do you suffer but you admonish yourself for your suffering with, 'Why do I feel this way? I shouldn't feel this way. I'm making myself feel this way because I'm such a... (fill in the blank but make it nasty).' When the mind gets agitated and negative, if you are patient and gentle with yourself it eventually settles down and you experience something we call peace and, at best, happiness. (For those of us who have been the biggest bullies to ourselves for most of our lives this is a big challenge).
It's similar to when you have an argument with someone, if you keep up the aggression, the conflict continues; if one person begins to show empathy and kindness, it dies down from a gale force to a gust of wind.
This does not mean you sit there like a lump of tofu; it means when your mind does what all of our minds do, which is change - change constantly and never stop chattering - you don't fight it but rather understand and accept it for what it is.
