A Bone To Chew On

    Many days I take an hour in the late morning, early afternoon to rest.
I lay down, sometimes actually go to sleep, but often as I am resting, if I
let my mind wander, I become agitated for one reason or another.

    On Thursday I had one such occurrence.  I set the alarm clock for one
hour, intending to let my mind rest and maybe even get a nap. Almost
immediately I began to think about an injustice that was done to a friend of
mine. My pulse increased, my breathing increased and I became upset.  While
there was nothing I could do about this injustice, I perseverated on it
until I became so lost in negative thinking I had to get up, forgetting
about getting any rest.

    It occurs to me that as I was just letting my mind wander, it fell upon
a subject that was likely to cause this effect.  If, however, upon laying
down for my rest, I had given focus to something pleasant, something
relaxing, I would have slowly drifted off to sleep.

    Cricket, our former pet and family member used to chew slippers, wooded
chair legs, socks and any of a number of other items when he was not
otherwise occupied.  We started giving Cricket frozen bones to chew so he
would leave other things alone.  He kept himself happily occupied chewing
those frozen bones for hours.

    Why the Cricket story?  The mind is much like Cricket.  If given focus,
the mind can take us to pleasant thoughts and a positive day.  Given no
focus or direction, the mind will lead us to places we may be better off not
going.

    As we go about our day, lets give our brain a positive bone to chew on.
By doing so, we will avoid the pitfalls that the mind can find on it's own
accord.  Focus on positive thoughts, chew on the bones you choose and then
bury a few of those positive bones for others to find along the path.
Keep on the path,

Toby Edmondson
Copyright © 2007
All Rights Reserved