Is Your Mind Majestic or Mush?
To have an open mind is to: mind your openness. Because it’s not static. It’s not like you can swing it open, place the door stopper there, and Shazam, now your mind is open for all of eternity. Open does not necessarily equal awesome. Open is not simply the opposite of closed. It’s more like the screening process at the airport, you have to ‘mind’ to it, just like you mind to your teeth and your toenails. When you don’t brush your teeth, they are grimy and your breath stinks. When the door of your mind is unattended, all kinds of sketchy characters will saunter in and make your mind grimy and your thoughts stink. Stinky thoughts translate into stale words and stale words translate into relationships that are polluted with moldy crusts of mediocrity.
It’s the screening process that needs to be consistently and consciously evaluated, upgraded, and polished. This translates as seeing your own ignorance and then transcending any and all shame around that ignorance into the kind of curiosity that is contagious. This curiosity is what needs to be opened, so that when you think you see a snake, you are curious enough to find out if it is truly a snake, or perhaps, it is just a rope. A rope that would be, oh so handy dandy, in providing the knots to support your climb, elevating you right up and out of that ignorance. The same rope, that on first glimpse was a deadly snake, is actually the very thing that life is serving you to rise up and into the light of your brilliance.
In the process of minding your openness, let’s not forgot about your roll dog, which is of course, your heart. The tending to, of anything, requires more than what the mind can offer, so part of minding, is recruiting. And just like like the most kick ass scout in all of sports land knows, recruitment is not weak, recruitment is brave and bold and powerful. For, in the process of recruitment, there is the non-negotionable requirement of exposure. A synonym for this kind of exposure is courage. You must be brave enough to reveal the parts of you that are virgin to the suns’ rays and risk getting burnt.
So to open my mind then, might look like Bali becoming Brazil. To open her mind might sound like conversing with a Trump or a Biden supporter and being curious instead of offended. To open his mind, might taste like trying out being a vegetarian with a genuine interest in the exploration.
To open our minds, collectively, will most definitely feel like a liberation from the weight of expectation that fuels judgement that we are supposed to know anything at all. This freedom is a rocket ship into the limitless expanse of a child’s mind that has been infused with the wisdom of all of your life’s experiences. What a phenomenal, majestical place to participate in this magnificent planet Earth from.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. For opening your mind to consider my perspective on an open mind! Wayne Dyer talks about a condition that we humans have, which is, looking for reasons to be offended. I found this to be such a helpful reminder as I am listening to other people speak. If I refuse to be offended, I can keep my mind open to actually hearing them vs. making it be about me.
May you be at ease.
Blessings,
Andrea Dawn
