Big waves in a still pond?
The mind is a peculiar thing, if you allow it, it will lead your life, tell you what to do and punish you at random with cruel, negative and untrue thoughts. If you have taken the decision not to live on the surface of your mind, and have taken the time to understand what is going on which requires the kind of attention that seem boring and pointless until you actually take the time to do it. Then it is possible to be objective enough about those thoughts that you are able to let them go by letting them be, and being at ease with them, this opens up the opportunity to lead your thoughts rather than being controlled by them. However in a cruel twist of fate, the calmer you mind is, the greater your awareness of it being disturbed, and so much of everyday life does disturb it.
It is like restarting the same game on a higher difficulty level, so you have handled the minor demons, you can recognise out of control anger disproportionate or inappropriate to the situation, and then you get to face the boss demon, justifiable outrage, when you have the chance to have righteous rage, and then you find out that that rage, feels just as bad or even worse, shame and guilt still follows. There is no greater cruelty than knowing superiority, when someone feels vindicated in their punishment, that they are allow to take wrong action for the right reason. Though in the end wrong action always feels like the wrong action and that part of us which is not thought, and instead the presence that witnesses your consciousness, know that it is wrong and that in turns prompts the mind into thoughts about that wrongness.
The calmer and stiller your mind, the more you notice these disturbances which seems like opposite of what you are trying to achieve, and it is not that there is more disturbance, it is just more present because you are paying attention. Despite this, it still seems like a better place than the normal reaction to problems of being too busy to have to deal with them, other than dealing with the worst problems first and in the moment that you think of them. It is not a considered approach, you are not going to arrive by the best solution in the moment, much of my best thinking is done when I am asleep, which is one of the reasons I prioritise sleep so highly, it is such a productive time both for your thoughts and your body, you might be able to run your body into the ground, but it is better to maintain it in the best condition for as long as possible, and sleep, diet and moving it around is the best way.
What reactive problem solving does is deal with the immediate problem through the path of least resistance, this might be fine for minor problems, if a problem can be solved in less than a minute by doing the first thing in your head, do it by all means. It works well for getting dirty cups to the sink area, or clutter to it's home, a bill that needs paying or a washing machine that needs loading, stuff that becomes more hassle when you end up not just having to do what needs doing that is in front of you, but then you have to remind to do later, which is an extra job, and one which I am bad at! However complex problem which are interlinked are not easily solved by reacting, these problems need time and distance.
They might need you to think about how they are link in the first place to other problem, not having time or money is not solved by ordering a takeaway, even if it solves the problem of being hungry, having no food in the house and no time to cook. It is not the time for solving the underlying problems, you have a surface problem that needs solving and it is only time and distance that can move you closer to better solutions. If it was easy to come up with a solution, it would fall under the do it now simple solution, and if you are lead only by the reactive mind, you never get that time.
When you are stuck on your train of thought, you are only along for the ride, and you do not even realise, that is full of repeats, worries, self-doubt, criticism, and it takes time to start observing those thoughts in real time. It can be useful to start writing down on paper what your worries are, just externalising your thoughts make them easier to note and once it has been noted it has been say and become a real thing that the mind no longer needs to keep repeating as it has caused action in the real world, it no longer has to warn you, and that is what the mind is doing it is warning you. It might not be right, the mind has no judgment, which is entirely in the witnessing presence, think a nasty thought and you will then feel the judgment and you will see that the judgment has no thought, you might have a thought about that judgment but that is not where the judging happen, the thought is just reporting it.
The strange thing is that as you get better, it gets harder, like a confident hiker who suddenly finds themselves out of their depths on a mountain. You had been thinking you were doing so well, and then you get hit by reality, there are always new problems, harder ones but ultimately higher quality and more substantial problems, ones that really shift the quality of your life, your confidence in being able to deal with anything, especially the unavoidable problems, and the truth is in every life the problems only get worse as you go along, loss, pain and death, is in every life and that is the big wave that washes everyone of us away. Which is why you should treasure the moments of stillness, it is a gift that you can leave unopened for the whole of your life if you never look for it, however it is such a joy and pleasure, I hope you get to experience it, and it stays with you, once visited, you always get to return, even if you experience those big waves later, at least you know it is possible to have stillness, so you know where to head, and with a purpose and direction, anything is possible, stillness can always be rediscovered.
