Just You and The Clouds

                                                                           
     I can remember lying on the ground when I was a little girl and making shapes out of the clouds. Sometimes the rabbit would morph into a teacup, depending on how quickly they floated by. The puffy whites and cotton candy skies were always a favorite.
     Some would say I had not a care in the world, and I probably didn’t. The clock ticked as usual, my bills were being paid, and dinner would be on the table at some point that evening.
I could take a break from trampoline jumping, bike riding or watching Gilligan’s Island and just lay in the grass and imagine what world those clouds were a part of. Sometimes I would even look past the clouds at “heaven” and wonder what was going up there. Was Jesus giving a speech? Was everything truly white and joyful?
     My brain was creating space. It was slightly working to be inventive and imaginative, but for the most part my mind was in the moment, present, and my body didn’t feel the need to keep up. Feeling like mental Jell-O, I had no worries. A state of ultimate relaxation, simply just “being”. In touch with no one and nothing other than my breathing.  

Fast forward.

     A new age of information. A new age of technology. New illnesses. Relationships. Experiences, memories, beliefs, perceptions, attitudes, expectations. My brain, like many of yours is tired. It gets stressed. I get anxious. I worry. I overthink. I ruminate. Perhaps it goes along with being a parent or perhaps it’s just what we do because we don’t allow ourselves to look at clouds anymore.

     I came across this saying by Osho recently that made me want to dash to the nearest shade tree and plop on my back:

                                           "Look at the trees, look at the birds, look at the clouds, look at the stars…and if you
                                            have eyes you will be able to see that the whole existence is joyful…Look at the flowers
                                             ---for no reason. It is simply unbelievable how happy flowers are.”              

     Tell me THIS won’t take your mental state back to one of “just being”.  
    All we have to do sometimes is allow ourselves to do nothing. To be nothing. To owe no one a thing. To merely make friends with the happy flowers.
     To just be in touch with that other imaginative world out there - the world of puffy whites and hues of blues and gray. The world of no electronics, no people, no noise, no expectations, and no worries.
     There is nothing stopping us from creating the habit of doing nothing. There is no one telling us to feel guilty for just being. Mindful moments are cathartic. They are healing. They give us power and encourage us to feel complete and present. We just need to allow them. 
     Anxiety struggles to exist when we are attentive to the here and now.
     So practice....be alone with yourself. Drop the “shoulds, woulds, and oughts”.  Connect to who you are at your core. No judging, no stresses, no pressures.  Practice being a little girl (or boy) and watch the clouds float by. What shapes do you see?  Take in the smells. Listen to the sounds. Touch the grass.
​      And remember, you always have permission to.... "just be".
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