The first thing they tell you when it comes to oxygen masks
It’s very exciting when traveling with family overseas although exhausting and one of the first things they talk to you about is passenger safety. When they were going through the procedures of fitting the oxygen masks they first tell you to put on your own and then put it on your kids. Isn’t that interesting?
Why would you put on yours first when your focus is usually to look after your loved ones first? As parents, we are often doormats for our kids having to do everything for them. Now I’m not against being a doormat. in fact, I love being a doormat for my kids. I love being able to provide for them and watch them grow up where they don’t need my help anymore and I eventually get out of being a doormat as they mature. But in the meantime, as they are growing they need me for all kinds of things.
But when it comes to the oxygen mask, I go before my kids?
Although I would instinctively put the mask on the child to save her life first, I am instructed to put my own on first. The obvious reason being that if I want to ensure that I get my kids mask on properly, I have to ensure that I am coherent enough to be able to do it. If I can’t breathe properly I’m not going to be of much service to my loved ones.
So I get the mask on first and then I can ensure the safety of my kids.
When I think of this, I realize that there are real life lessons here. If I want to be there for anyone, I need to take care of myself first. When my well-being is intact I can truly be here for you. I can’t be present and truly reach out to help you if I don’t feel good about me.
Now, this is not about being selfish and self-centered, because you aren’t going to be good with anyone if you are continually focused on yourself. When you get caught up in your own thinking about yourself, you’re not really present to the other person in front of you.
Where are you? You’re not really here You may be here physically but your thoughts are somewhere else. In fact, you might as well be somewhere else because you’re not here with them if you’re worried about something else.
The realization of the fact of thought Once you realize the fact that you think and you create a whole story in your mind via thought, you are then coming to the realization that you might not need to hold on to it so tightly since we are always making up and having new thoughts, moment to moment. Where would you be without that worrisome thought if you didn’t take it so seriously?
Letting go When you start to let go of your worrisome thoughts you get out of your own way to see the new. And that is precisely what happens when you connect with someone with nothing on your mind. When you are mentally free, you are fully present for the other person. You are here and not in your head.
Eye contact, face the other person blah blah blah
Then you’re ready to fully reach out to the maximum and be of true service to the to the other person. When good connection takes place, you don’t necessarily need to to make eye contact and face the other person because you are eagerly focused on them, you’ll do what naturally occurs to you in order to connect with them.
Deep meditative connection can occur If that means you need to look at them in the eyes when talking, then you’ll look at them in the eyes when talking to them. But even if you do or even if you don’t, it’s not a must for good connection. Sometimes when talking to a client on the phone I’ll have my eyes shut and be in a real deep meditative connection with them while listening with no agendas on my mind. Thats when Im really open to being able to help them see something that I and they didnt see previously about them. And because I am listening with the silence of my mind, it allows them to come up with things about them that they have never seen before.
There are no absolutes here except for a quiet non-chatty mind. When that happens, you’ll automatically know what to say or what not to say, what to do or what not to do. This is because you’re in deep connection, not only the other person as you listen but with yourself as well. And then things get noticed by you and by the other person when in this meditative state that wouldn’t normally come up for you when having a lot of thought on your mind.
Wishing you only deep relationships when you fully reach out to others after having reached into yourself first.