By Ann-Marie McKelvey, LPCC, MCC
MCS Founder & Director

Without a frame, potholder loops will not become potholders. They need something to hold onto to in order to become real. Duh!

Without a frame, ideas cannot manifest into reality. Mmm…

Without a frame, ideas multiply haphazardly, creating illusions of overwhelm and resulting in indecisiveness. What a mess!

Our minds innocently perpetuate messy illusions. They do this through:

• Thoughts
• Belief systems
• Perceptions
• Judgments

I call all of this Mental Abundance. It’s the swirling parade of thoughts that you have access to at any given moment, content aside.

Like all thought forms, Mental Abundance is impermanent – even when it is perceived as being solid, fixed, and eternal.

Oh, Shariputra… Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.

One of the many gifts of impermanence is that it shakes and shocks us out of our habitual structures and into flowing with what arises.

And something wonderful happens…

The impermanence updates us and the Mental Abundance is transformed. Through this alchemy, the illusion is refined into the basic needs required for us to live a wholehearted life, as Zen Master Dogen describes.

But how is this done? How can we consciously participate in this process?

I get curious with myself, and I invite you to do the same. Sit and ask yourself the following questions…

– What am I choosing to think about in 2019? (Where attention goes, energy flows.)

– What belief systems are ready to be uprooted and composted?

– How am I crafting my 2019 life?

– What will I be overflowing with?

With a deep bow to you, to frames, to impermanence, to wholehearted life as we enter 2019…

Ann-Marie

Follow Ann-Marie’s blog!