What do you do with the obsessive mind?

There was a time in my life when I could freely pursue all my obsessions, I could sit locked up in my room for hours, brooding about boredom, love, or anger. I could take off on my bike and meet a friend or two, or sit somewhere secluded and wild after a torrential fight with my mom. I could throw my frustration and anger on others and say 'I dont care' a million times and think that it didn't really matter.

When waves of obsession hit the shores of calm within, I want to pursue them(whatever the obsession is). Perhaps stay locked up, scream and yell like a crazed teenager I used to be and run away to some wild seclusion where I can just be quiet and do my thing. But that's the character of obsession I suppose. The everyday voice that does, becomes and makes grows louder every now and then, triggered by something within and out. It cascades into this restlessness to do something, anything. The restlessness to be someone else than who I am right now. The restlessness to achieve and get to that place.

What is available in your right now?

I care deeply about this obsession, about how it churns my innards and explodes on the outside and how it affects everyone I love. I honor the need to be someone more, do something more and live better, but I also know that this obsessing mind achieves nothing. An obsessing mind is busy already, obsessing about what it needs, desires and wants, in the meantime though there is a baby, a husband and family to love and enjoy. There is the right now, the right now that wills me to come back to what is happening around me.


My obsessions are my opportunity not to do something but to stop doing. It begins within, a meditative practice. A practice like my sitting meditation practice, of coming back to the present moment, of letting the obsessive mind be in the background, while I give my present moment to everything that's available.