Ep. 8: Imprints of Potential

Beyond the News

Close your eyes and picture your mind as a garden. There, planted deep in the soil are seeds or imprints. Imprints like anger, jealousy and hatred, or joy, generosity and compassion. When we listen to or read the news, these seeds have the capacity to rise to the surface and affect how we think, speak and act.
The practice before us, says. Dr Ward, is to grow our awareness of how to water the wholesome seeds that will lead us to a shared place of justice, wellness and harmony.
Go deeper with this practice:
First, enjoy 5–10 minutes of mindful breathing and coming home to yourself. Then, as in a guided meditation, invite yourself to look into your heart and mind and ask yourself the following 4 questions:

• What beautiful, wholesome fruit has arisen that blesses your life, and the life of others, with goodness?
• What seeds in your life need more attention?
• What seeds have emerged that you do not want present in your life?
• What unwholesome seeds, like anger, fear or jealousy, do not dominate your life?

“If we continue to explore the discovery of self-knowledge that the news can give us, we can discover amazing things about ourselves, and not be carried away by the narrative and rhetoric of the news we encounter.”

—Dr. Larry Ward
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