Kendo’s Healing Message for June

Kendo has been asked, “If, despite your best efforts, things are getting you down, how can you get back to feeling optimistic?”

This is a perfectly natural question – understandably so, as the norm for most of us is continuing to meet recurring challenges in order to keep our heads above water, so-to-speak. It’s entirely reasonable to wonder, “Won’t things ever get easier?”

Kendo says that feeling this way can be helped greatly by letting everything go in meditation, but the process can be enhanced. Of course you should find the place of Zen peace and relax absolutely, but adding a hint of Kyu Shin Do can enhance the process and add perspective.

In Kyu Shin Do, Kendo has advised that seeking Zen peace after visualising all your problems positioned away from you, at a safe distance – effectively ‘in orbit’ around you – can help you achieve a deeper Zen peace, and feel better and more objective about returning to your life’s challenges following your meditation. You’re not forgetting about, ignoring, or dismissing your challenges – you’re giving yourself a well-deserved break from them, and you’ll be re-empowered and equipped with new perspectives on them when you return to dealing with them.

During the unique challenges of the past year, Kendo has found that some people have confessed to becoming more dispirited than they’ve ever felt, and finding oneself in this state of mind can be particularly difficult. If you find yourself to be depressed, it’s actually normal to lack the motivation to do anything, including helping yourself; depression can genuinely shut us down and deprive us of any and all motivation.

However, this illustrates the one key aspect of self-discipline which Kendo most strongly recommends – don’t believe the nonsense your conscious mind tells you – you are fundamentally wiser than it, and you re-charge your batteries by switching it off and reaching your wise, intuitive core. You can never meditate too much – indeed while each meditation may follow the same format, every one is different – you are different every time you meditate, and every one empowers you in unique ways.

Of course, the sceptical, reductionistic, limited conscious mind will raise objections and prompt you to ask, “What’s the point?” If you listen, then a simpler, more basic, less sophisticated level of yourself is triumphing over a wiser, more profound, and higher part of yourself – the part which can lift you out of any negativity and help you become all you can be.

So, when things feel bleak, take Kendo’s advice and remember that you are bigger and better than how you feel or any of the childish arguments of your simple mind – and all you have to do to regain the upper hand is take the initiative, spend some time in Zen peace, and you’ll come out on top once more.

Kendo would remind us that this simple act of self-discipline and self-motivation is at the foundation of the warrior spirit – you won’t know how great you can be unless you remember to rise above and beyond the crass complaints of the simplistic conscious mind.

Onwards!

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