Stop Talking to Yourself

In my profession I am always talking to myself.  Not just out loud but internally as well.  Most people just call that thinking, but if anyone else is like me, it sounds like dialogue inside my head. 

This morning as I was trying to sort out some notes regarding the rough cut of "Jay Johnson: The Two and Only", A different voice interrupted and said, "Stop thinking about what you are going to say, or what you are going to do. Just let it be when it is... stop thinking."

At that moment I realized I was rehearsing a scene to come in this story called my life. It wasn't a performance it was a rehearsal. If something is organic and real it can't be rehearsed, so it was an exercise in mental mumbling not constructive contemplation. 

I agreed with the idea that I should stop thinking.  Just be in the moment.  Don't live in a future moment at the sake of actually living the present moment,  now. Just be, just react and live in the actual moment.  It was a calming realization and a moment of clarity.

So I stopped thinking about the show and the notes and the DVD and the schedule and the pressures of the production and tried to just float with the moment.  I was outside in a beautiful California morning with balmy clear blue skies, I noticed that the trees were all individual shades of green where moments ago I didn't see them at all. It was a territory and a place in my life that was comfortable, calm and peaceful.

I could not wait to write this feeling down, to express it and package it.  I immediately started thinking about how I would construct the blog this morning, and then it dawned on me.  I was thinking again. I walked from the spring like weather outside and into my office to write about the feeling of being outside. No longer in the moment, no longer aware of the trees, I was thinking about what I would write about not thinking.

My inner dialogue betrayed the actual desire. I had not stopped thinking, I had simply changed the subject matter that occupied my former thought.  It was gone, that moment of peace. The rehearsal of an up and coming life scene was simply replaced by another.  I was not clear, I had continued to think and I was back out of sync with actually being alive.

If you don't believe me, try it for yourself. Try just to be still and have no thoughts about anything for a moment.  Usually a moment is all your ego will allow, it immediately wants to get your attention. That inner voice says, "Hey, wake up... listen to me when I talking to you." I don't need to just change the station on my internal radio broadcast... I need to figure out how to turn it off for awhile.

Two words keep coming back to me Echart Tolle.

As you were,

Jay