Artfully Mindful

REPLAY: The Mindful Blank Page

• D. R. Thompson • Season 2 • Episode 36

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Note: This was one of my favorite podcasts, so once in a while I like to replay it. I hope you enjoy.

Ever felt stuck staring at a blank page, unsure of what to create? Discover how embracing the "mindful blank page" can turn obstacles into opportunities and infuse everyday moments with profound meaning. Join us as we reframe writer's block and mundane tasks through the lens of mindfulness, revealing how even brewing a cup of coffee or supporting a loved one can become acts of artful engagement. Life is a canvas, and mindfulness is our brush—listen in to learn how to craft a beautiful, purposeful existence despite external challenges.

In our next chapter, we shift focus to the astonishing agility and freedom of the human mind. By training our minds, we unlock the ability to adapt swiftly to life's ever-changing circumstances, embodying the resilience that no external force can take away. Like turning on a dime, mental freedom is both a treasure and a testament to our enduring spirit. We thank you for your continued support and look forward to our next enlightening conversation. Until then, stay mindful and take care.

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Note that Don Thompson is now available as a coach or mentor on an individual basis. To find out more, please go to his website www.nextpixprods.com, and use the 'contact' form to request additional information.

Speaker 1:

The Earth is a small. I wanted to talk a little bit about what I'm going to call the mindful blank page in this podcast. In this podcast, so, what I mean by the mindful blank page is we've all had the experience of sitting down to the computer, or you know something we're going to write on like a notepad or something, and we sit there with our pen or our fingers, you know, ready to type or whatever, and nothing happens. You know, it's just blank. It stays blank. We have what you might call writer's block, we have what you might call an obstacle to creativity.

Speaker 1:

So the question becomes then how do we get beyond the blank page to a meaningful page? This can also be a metaphor, really, for how we lead our lives, because if we look at our life as a blank page, blank page we can see that every moment really is an opportunity to find something of interest, something meaningful, something with purpose to engage in. And I know that that sounds a little daunting, really, because life is to a large extent the banal. It's the boring moments. It's getting up in the morning and staring at the coffee maker until the coffee's done. That's what life is about to a great extent. It's not really that exciting. We only really reach the exciting moments in life, you could say, once in a while, or briefly or fleetingly, and then the rest of our lives are really spent waiting. In a sense, we're waiting for the next moment that's going to bring meaning and purpose, that's going to bring beauty, that's going to bring some kind of epiphany.

Speaker 1:

The proposition with mindfulness is that that kind of life can be a vote in the moment, wherever you are. You could be sitting at home, you could be on the beach in Maui, you could be sitting next to your parent who is dying in the hospital, you could be anywhere and you can see the potential of that moment, the blank page of that moment, to create something beautiful from that moment, the blank page of that moment to create something beautiful from that moment. And that's part of why I called this podcast Artfully Mindful, because it seems to me that life is really an art in a way. I mean, you know writers or thinkers have mentioned or called out the art of living. Of course we all know that and I'm sure you could Google and find plenty of books on the subject related to the art of living. But the simple proposition here again is that it's really up to you. Really the art of living, or whether or not the art of your life, will be something that is something you like, something you're happy with, or something that you're not happy with, or something that troubles you, that makes you feel sad, perhaps even you know even you know I found it in my own life that it really is my responsibility to make it what it is. You can't wait for anybody to tell you you're good enough. You can't wait for anybody to tell you to be happy.

Speaker 1:

Mindfulness has taught me, both in my recent adventures into mindfulness certification, plus the teachers that I've studied with in the past, that if you can quiet the mind and if you can find that place of what you might call the still point of awareness, the presence that's always there, that opens up a whole new world of potential for you, both in the moment and beyond the moment. The beauty of it is that we begin to realize that there really is only the moment. The future really isn't there, the future doesn't really exist yet. The past is gone. Because the future doesn't exist yet and the past is gone, we pretty much have the blank page that I talked about.

Speaker 1:

That's such a great thing. It's really incredibly freeing actually when you think about it, because there is no anticipation and whatever we've done has already passed and really what we're left with is the continuum of the present moment. The continuum of the present moment can always be turned into whatever you want. You have that freedom. Now you can say that well, outside circumstances will always impact that. How do you expect me to feel that freedom when I'm in a really, really awful situation? That isn't of my doing, in a really, really awful situation? That isn't of my doing. And it's difficult to grasp and it's difficult to accept and may or may not be supported by the facts, but it's sometimes best to feel that you are responsible completely for what's in front of you and in a way, that's not true really we know that but it also gives you a certain stance and attitude towards living. That is quite liberating and that's really what I found in my own life.

Speaker 1:

In my own life, I've been able to do a lot of different things and I've tried a lot of different things, and some things you might say I've done better than others, some things I've been successful at, and other things you might say I've failed at. But I've always been willing to try, because I've always seen really the potential of trying of doing something, and you'll never know what you can do, of course, unless you try. So the beauty of the mindfulness movement and the mindfulness sort of approach is that it really sort of allows you to create that blank page from which you can create whatever you want. You know, within the limitations of your life, within the you know practicality of your life, but still you know it is quite amazing. Let's say, for example, if you're a writer, If you're a writer and you're living in a one-bedroom apartment, you know, in downtown Los Angeles, you can sit at that typewriter or that personal computer, that laptop, that software, that word processor, that scripting software and you can write the most amazing story that's ever been told.

Speaker 1:

It could all be from within your own mind. The most beautiful thing you've ever seen, you know, is in your imagination. That can be wielded, so to speak, from the stuff of the present moment, from the stuff of the banal, from the stuff of that one-room apartment. You don't need to go to the high mountaintops necessarily to get inspired. You can get inspired by looking at the window in that one-bedroom apartment and the way the light comes through that window might be absolutely breathtaking, the way that perhaps the curtain just lightly taps on the windowsill in the moment as you quiet the mind. It could be just amazingly beautiful. And because it's so amazingly beautiful, what's right in front of you you can take that energy and you can take that realization. And you can take that blank page and you can make something beautiful. You can write a poem page and you can make something beautiful. You can write a poem, you can write a novel, you can write a screenplay. With a camera. You can take a picture of that dappled sunlight as it comes through the window in your one-bedroom apartment in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1:

What an amazing thing life is really when you think about it. It's just so free. It's just so free even within the constraints of what you might call everyday life. And that freedom is, I think you know, really sort of daunting to a lot of people and I would encourage you to not be daunted by it. If you have felt daunted by your own freedom, felt daunted by your own freedom, I typically don't like to hurt people. I don't like to disrupt an equilibrium. You know, sort of something that's working. Why change it? You know that type of thing. So I'm not suggesting. You know, you throw away everything in your life and move on to something new.

Speaker 1:

That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting, perhaps, is that, even within what's perceived to be the constraints of your current life you know, maybe you've got three kids that you're dealing with, you know you've got to get them off to school every day, that type of thing Well, even within the constraints of that, there's freedom, absolute freedom. This is why the sages in India are so amazing. I mean many of them. Some of them live in abject poverty they have in the past but yet they feel completely liberated. They are completely liberated in their mind, and that's what their students feel. So they don't really need to have the material wealth surrounding them, because the wealth is within themselves. The wealth is really within their own mind. That's the treasure. You know, in Tibet they call it the mind treasure, the mind treasure. That's what they call it.

Speaker 1:

So the East has brought to us this kind of wisdom that we don't need to be dependent upon external things in order to make us happy, in order for us to be able to grasp the potentiality of life and to create something meaningful with our lives. So I'll leave it at that. That's a briefer podcast for today, just talking a little bit about the blank page, about inspiration, about potentiality and how mindfulness can make us see that or help us to see that potentiality, simply by stilling the mind in the moment and not being distracted by all these thoughts that are cascading into our mind, telling us this or that, telling us what is about to happen or not to happen, what is possible or what is impossible. All these things are just ideas.

Speaker 1:

If you train the mind, you can turn on a dime, as they used to say. Right, you can turn on a dime, and that's a beautiful thing, that's a great thing, it's freedom, and that's really something that's very difficult to take away the freedom of the mind, I would say perhaps impossible. Let's hope it stays that way for human beings. Thanks for listening. I always appreciate your listening and I really look forward to the next podcast for you. Until then, take care. Thank you.