“Don’t sensationalize the objective.” That was the message which popped into my brain during my usual morning meditation. Immediately after hearing it, my mind was filled with informative descriptors: a large mountain that grew even taller, needing to be climbed (and feeling the summit getting further away and tougher to reach); an eddie in a river that enveloped me which, had I been paying attention, I would’ve noticed the river was still flowing me in the right direction anyway.
This was a message to realize: I sometimes take a particular goal and stare so intently at it, that it begins to take on the look and feel of something gargantuan. We have heard over and over again that what you think about most comes to pass. I tend to agree with the statement; yet this directive pointed out an angle which I think we sometimes miss: How you think and feel about something can either help or hinder the journey in reaching it.
When we shoot for a goal, naturally we must focus on it and become one with it in order to move energy and magnetize events. However, as intimated by the message, if we sensationalize it, what are we doing? We are making it psychically larger and more intense in our minds and bodies, and that feeling oftentimes can result in an unexpected side-effect: being overwhelmed, anxious and fearful – when such thoughts and emotions really aren’t necessary.
Think of that television news crew who singles out the one loose brick that fell off a building – one in a million – and makes the multiple camera angles of the brick look and sound as if the whole building were coming down. But in reality, it’s really not that huge at all!
We may, in ourselves, inadvertently do the same thing when it comes to looking at our lives and our perceptions of the past, present, and future. We take small bits of things and focus so much attention that we lose objective perception and begin to sensationalize within our imaginations. This sensationalism then results in sensationalized feelings, which then arrest our psyches and any movement we may hope to gain.
This is not to say there aren’t events in life which do give rise to legitimate thoughts and feelings of being overwhelmed, and hence sensationalism – for instance, the death of a family member, a sudden break-up or divorce, or (on the other end of the spectrum) the birth of a newborn child. But, as was pointed out to me in meditation, let’s face it – those events are sporadic and only happen every so often during the course of a lifetime; they are not everyday occurrences. So when moving forward throughout the day, if I am feeling anxious or suspect the feelings of being overwhelmed are coming down the pipe, the message given to me was simply to realize my own imagination acting like that news crew – making something larger and greater than it may actually be. At that moment, I have to remind myself “Don’t sensationalize it.” And when I accept that moniker, the inflation gets completely sucked away, like air being released from a tire. My mind, then, feels so much more at ease and my consciousness accepts the situation as being something much more manageable – and subsequently freeing. The feeling of the difference from just that little mental switch is remarkable.
The experience of life is a psychic one – it all comes through the filters of the psyche (hence ‘psychic’) – and those filters will, in turn, affect our emotions and ultimately the decisions we make in how to react or move forward. If you are feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or frightened in your experience, ask yourself: Are you sensationalizing the condition?
I am learning that becoming “conscious” means not just being aware of what I’m thinking and feeling, but also how I, on some level, am contributing to the creation of those same thoughts and feelings by my own psychic (mental) processes, which will ultimately determine the nature of my experience and unfolding of my life.
Remember, you are all Perfect Beings, experiencing your perfection one day, one moment, and one thought at a time.
- Jeffrey