. . . going forward I wish to explain something that has, I believe, caused concern and disappointment in some readers.
The whole purpose of the posts which come from zionwisdom.com are not to draw attention to myself but to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. (I do appreciate knowing when something appears, ‘which strikes a cord’ of stronger perspective and change.) I’m hoping that any positive energy/perspective coming from the posts be directed toward a closer relationship with our Heavenly Father and His Son. Give them the credit. . . by doing things differently for that closer/stronger faith and perspective. I’m not in this to become popular, but that They may be appreciated through our positive change towards them and away form the multiple defeats of the adversary. . . of any adversary. (kdm)
and. . . From the book ‘The Power of Stillness’ we read:
“Desperate to find some internal relief, the sister with the noisy mind downloaded a meditation app in hopes it could make a difference. Even while giving it an honest try, however, she confessed to getting frustrated at the beginning, feeling like she “couldn’t keep ‘focused’ enough on meditation to do any good.” She added, ” When my mind wandered. I would become upset and irritated. I just couldn’t do it!”
Rather than assuming she was “failing” at the meditation, she eventually realized this is pretty much how meditation works—a cycle of focus, distraction and refocus. Instead of trying to create a state of forced and rigid stillness, and feeling like she was failing when she couldn’t sustain that, she started to work with the cycle of the mind—training it to recognize its wandering and consciously come back to a place of clam, back to still . . . over and over.
Learning to notice the drift of the wandering mind and guide it back to a single point is part of learning to quiet the mind. These moments of intentional stillness, practiced more regularly, helped this woman experience a deeper level of quiet, and what she called a “blessed peace” began to grow in her life.
As reflected here, a central part of working with the mind is having an anchor to help ground it—a “still, quiet place” to which your attention can return and rest at any point. ~ Jacob Z.Hess, Carrie L. Skarda, Kyle D. Anderson, Ty R. Mansfield, The Power of Stillness, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2019).
