The Power of the MIND!

If I had to take a look back at my life, I might think of all the struggles that I went through to get to where I am today but I might as well focus on all the positive stories that happened to me that make me the person I am today.

For instance, my childhood was a happy childhood in general. I loved playing with the children of my neighbours. I was given this blackboard as a gift from an uncle so I had to pretend I was a teacher on so many occasions of pretend play. At first, I didn’t know what I was doing and then I thought about my teachers and what they did in class. They read us stories, they gave us work to do and they let us play. I created a timetable. The neighbours were very happy to let their children play with me because they knew they were safe even though I was either the same age or a few years older. My mind had told me I had to become a teacher and get things organised and so I did.

Obviously, years apart I look at these episodes and laugh because I realise how teaching was always so ingrained in me but I also realise it was my mind that decided so. By time, teaching became part and parcel of me. I studied hard. I had my own struggles. Some exams were too difficult to get through. For instance, I still remember my incessant questions to my mother like: “Why do I have to study Physics if I want to teach languages?” Her wise answer would always be: “If you learn your duties and disciplines, then you can do anything you dream of.” Nowadays, I say how true those words were. But they were not only words, for every time I felt like giving up there they were: her hugs, her words of encouragement, her hot chocolate and her dancing like no one’s watching to the music of Gypsy Kings. She passed on her fierce spirit to me and whenever I have had other struggles in life, I do remember those formative years and automatically think that I can conquer that too.

A lot of people see me as composed and cool and they automatically assume that I have the world under my control. First of all, my aspiration is not to have anything under control except my life, my emotions and my struggles. I have no deep desire to conquer the world. If I had to conquer anything, that would be the spread of love towards humanity: an injection into the sensibile parts of our body, mind and spirit. For instance, in today’s world the need for this sensibility is great. At times, our minds and hearts leave our bodies and seem to run behind the materialistic things in life. If we think about “rice” as a basic need and think we have it all sorted, then we’re wrong. We will waste it and never know it’s true value. But if we think of something as simple as rice as a protected source that will keep us alive, then we will surely appreciate it more.

When I think of the simplest things in life and how sometimes we seem to forget how fun life was as children eagerly discovering everything: from a pencil to a tree, from bananas to oranges, from liquids to floating objects ... if we only manage to go back in time and rediscover who we really are ... then the connection is once again established for there are too many interferences but there is only one true connection ...

We will travel wherever our mind will take us.

I choose to travel with both heart and mind.

I may not have the easiest of journeys.

I may not always arrive first or even be on time but everytime I fall along the way, I keep abreast with my objective, with my destination ... I am aware of the long road and I do not feel guilty to rest when I need to.

When I doubt myself, when I doubt my journey, I am doubting life itself and there is no space for doubt.

This is my life. I reclaim it. I will not waste time. I will not fear what might seem an impossible objective. I will thread on. I will persevere and if need be I will repeat these words to myself once again with the spirit of Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo.