Sunday, April 25, 2010

Getting Bored? Be The Medium

Often times it seems difficult to give our all to certain things. You postpone them, you find ways of not doing it, you even want to quit that sometimes since it's such a drag. It does not interest you anymore. It seems like a huge burden to even think about it.

It happened with me last evening when I was to sit down and write some articles I had promised. It hung on my thoughts like a big weight. I could not even get started.

I thought about it. One reason why I had not even started was this big drag on my mind - that I had to get my body and mind to move and do this whole lot of work and give it my 100% and push my limits and all that. It was too tiring to even think of it that way. No wonder I never got started.

Do Champions Get Bored?
Then I thought about it and wondered how champions would handle this block. Would Sachin get bored of batting, Federer of tennis, Bolt of running, Isinbayeva of pole vault? After all, they had achieved what they wanted to. Then what is it that motivates them to keep coming back harder and push that limit again. Do they sit in their bed every morning and wonder, why am I doing this when I have everything?

The Medium
Then it struck me that the only way for them to get back each day is to be so devoted to the process. They just allow that talent to express itself through them. Now, that makes the process seem so much easier does it not. Just be the medium and allow what has to happen naturally without putting your thoughts in the middle.

I tried that approach. I figured that my body is just the medium. What I choose to express through it, is what is important. What I allow it to express. Whether to write, or play cricket, talk, ideate, sleep or watch television, I allow my body to express that. The only thing I can do is to let the body express itself freely and not put any burdensome, heavy thoughts in its way that will stop it from expressing itself or the idea or the talent fully.

Now when I looked at my work that way, it was a whole new perspective. When I sat down to write (which I did), I did not feel the gun at my head. Instead I looked at it as something I was expressing to the best of my ability at that moment. I started off and did half the job and decided to take a break and take it later - when the medium is ready to express itself. Until then, let the medium express itself the way it wants to.
Felt no burden.

Felt Free
The medium, my body, is transparent in my visualisation. Negative thoughts, doubts, fears and other such negative emotions only block the flow of my expression - which is very subtle. The clearer the path is, the better the delivery and the more the impact. In fact what starts as a simple idea, betters itself and becomes a more refined thought as the medium is clearer.
I think I will use this visualization for all that I do - of the medium and the free flow of energy through it to sustain my state.

1 comment:

Shobha Nargundkar said...

very good idea...when i was standing in the hot sun at noon and thinking 'god, its so hot' i remembered your idea and decided to visualize my body as transparent with the heat passing through it and not staying.it wasn't so hot after that!thank you..