This article is an extract from The Rosicruscian #87 (Feb 2022)

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing seems to be going right, where deadlines mysteriously converge, traffic lights are always red and lift doors close as you approach them? I’m sure you have and you’ll understand how I felt as I found myself sitting alone in my cubicle late one summer afternoon in the large open-plan office where I earn my daily bread. Long after everyone had gone home I sat there, feeling decidedly sorry for myself and more than a bit angry that I hadn’t completed the things I should easily have done that day.

In my negative self-reflection I felt that every effort I made to move things forward was being frustrated by delays and unnecessary obstructions. My mind rushed from one memory of disappointment to another in what seemed an endless cycle of unforeseen problems, unhelpful people and coincidences that seemed to have made a mockery of my plans. “Why me!” was the sorry-for-myself cry.

Most people have such moments from time to time, sometimes during the day but also late at night when the mind can’t settle and keeps us awake with self-tormenting reflections about every trivial thing in God’s creation. And when we’re deep in such gloom it’s easy to become caught in a whirlpool of negativity that can overwhelm our normal critical abilities and make us unable to break the cycle of negative thoughts, self-criticism and self-doubt.

If you recognise some of this, take heart, you’re not alone, for many well-known people have, through the ages, been known to have been plagued at times with self-doubt and negative thoughts: William Blake, Buzz Aldrin, Hans Christian Andersen, Winston Churchill, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Michelangelo, Isaac Newton, and many more. However, they all achieved great things in spite of, or maybe even because of, such negative moments, and that should give us hope when we face similar circumstances. If others fall face in the mud and manage to pull themselves up and continue as though nothing untoward has happened, then we can too. But how do we accomplish this? How should we react when we find ourselves falling into that negative state of mind that brings on all the ‘demons of the mind?’ Is there an emergency procedure we can follow when we’re at our lowest ebb? Happily there is!

Pull Yourself Together

When we’re down and at our whiniest about our circumstances, some well-intentioned people will gruffly say ‘pull yourself together!’ as though a few kind words wouldn’t have been better under the circumstances. Such advice so often ignores the basic mechanisms of our brains that have evolved over millions of years to recognise patterns in the world around us. So, when, through our own careless thinking, our minds have been given the task of finding every negative thing in sight, it does an extraordinarily good job of it. It can even create negative outcomes that don’t even exist yet! So how can we free ourselves from this state of mind? Especially, how do we stop having negative thoughts when we know perfectly well they will merely spawn more of the same?

I find the most critical step in escaping such a mental state is one of self-recognition...

I find the most critical step in escaping such a mental state is one of self-recognition, namely recognising and becoming aware that my mind is actually actively seeking negativity around me, when it could just as easily be actively seeking positive situations instead. Then, rather than encouraging the mind to continue its self-defeating task of finding more and more negativity, I try to enter a state of neutrality, so-to-speak put the mind in neutral and allow life to coast along a while ‘without me.’ As I do this, I naturally gravitate to a state of less and less obsessive thinking, less and less harsh judgement being delivered by my chattering brain about the rights and wrongs of whatever bothers me so much. Eventually I try to enter a state of no-thought, where my mind enters the closest I can to a state of true nothingness. I try, metaphorically, to** ‘step off the world’** a while as I blank my mind and give up everything to a ‘higher power.’ That’s the start of my emergency procedure; that’s how I begin when I wish to stop the destructive cycle.

It’s like a resetting of the mind, you know..., pressing and holding one of those buttons on your electronic watch until it’s ready to have the time reset. The inner silence that accompanies a blanking of the mind is precisely what we need in order to re-sensitise ourselves to the presence of our deeper self and, through that awakening, to start looking in a different, more positive direction. Of course, thinking of nothing is, on the surface, quite a difficult task as it entails not thinking at all; and how do you do that? Well, even if you can’t fully accomplish it, the mere act of trying will, at least partially, assist in resetting your mind and making it available to think about better things.

Illumination

Nevertheless, returning to my cubicle in the office, sitting there dejectedly on that clear summer’s evening, I started trying to think of nothing just as the fading sunlight started to reflect from a window in a tall office building behind me and illuminated parts of the large open-plan room in a seemingly random manner. It was a surreal experience, as though time were slowing down just for me. It truly felt as though something were happening just for my benefit, and I was astounded at the sudden clarity and beauty of everything.

As I looked more closely at the light and dark patches in the large room, the areas being exposed by the light were anything but random for me; there was purpose and beauty everywhere. The photographs of families on the desks of my work colleagues were brightly illuminated, showing the smiles and love within each frame. I began to follow the light beams as they slowly moved around the room, and, noticed how each item touched by the sun’s rays seemed to be linked in some way with the previous item and led on to the next one as if they were related to each other, one giving birth to the next, each one connected to its predecessor and its successor in a long line of cause and effect.

Following the light in this silent manner, I could see how people in the office shared many things. More than just trivial tasks, they shared aspirations and, above all, they shared the many small islands of love they had experienced. I forgot time, forgot where I was, as I began to feel linked by deeper shared values that made all of us more like a big loving family than a random group of people sharing a miserable and stressful work environment.

As I wondered what would be illuminated next, I suddenly felt a warmth on my back and knew that I was now the focus of the light. At that moment I realised that, instead of being held back, I was simply a part of a much larger pattern where, even if I didn’t appreciate it at the time, I was an essential cog in a big and wondrous machine, a much greater whole than I had ever dared believe possible. And the best thing about this was that I felt a deep purpose behind that ‘whole’, even though I couldn’t understand what it was. All seemed so clear at the time, though I can’t today explain what it was other than the profound sense of connectedness that so utterly consumed me.

That annoying red traffic light that delayed me from getting to work on time that morning, the old man driving erratically at a snail’s pace which made my two-minute delay to my desk turn into 10 minutes..., all that and much more had a purpose, and I saw that the purpose was good and in fact was precisely as it should be; no faster, no slower, no need to change anything one way or the other, all was working to perfection just the way it was meant to happen. The only thing that was missing that hectic morning was my trust in allowing a greater plan to unfold. Truly there is a greater purpose behind everything, even when we can’t see it, but maybe especially when we can’t see it.

I felt a deep purpose behind that 'whole', even though I couldn't understand what it was

So the next time you’re confronted by a ‘bad day’, take time to relax a while, step off the world and blank your mind with a feeling of gratitude and wonder for just a few minutes. There’s a whole universe out there working for you, making things happen just the way they were meant to. Our thoughts and experiences are all interconnected and we can, and should, design our lives to seek the positive and creative, and shun and discard the negative and destructive…, always!