Mind the gap as a metaphor helps us in our lives.
It started out as a carved out message reminder in the London Underground waiting platform to pay attention to the gap getting on the train.
And all around London you find painted “Look” signs 👀 and messages that can be helpful or at least interesting to look at.
For a brief moment then, we look down at our feet so we don’t misstep.
Most of us have seen these type of signs… or have had the experience of riding a bus, subway, or metro train where for a gap moment we were mindful seeing or not seeing a sign.
The mind the gap written sign is a metaphor for our unscripted happy lives… putting mindful focus on what’s actually in front of us, and putting emphasis on the love and productive sides of our lives.
Mind the gap metaphors are opportunities for more awareness in our lives (and what they’re becoming).
…Because if we’re living in daily awareness knowing what we’re doing, observing what’s happening around us and how we react, then we’re less likely to slip into the gap in our conscious lives.
The gap could be fear, darkness, or what we don’t want.
In our unconscious sleeping lives or altered state of consciousness in meditation, we intentionally look for falling into the gap calm and silencing the mind moments, so we experience better health and stress calming benefits.
It’s our awake subconscious mind that often adds complication to our lives as we’re moving and taking action, but only partial conscious of what we’re thinking.
To bypass our awake subconscious from derailing our happy outcomes and thoughts, we can ask revealing questions to ourselves:
Are we inconsistent?
Is what we say different than what we actually do in certain areas (because rarely is it all the time)? Or are we projecting onto others when we’re the ones that are going through the projected experience?
Is there a misalignment in our life?
Do we feel disconnected in some way?
Do we lack purpose and meaning and a reason to wake up on time?
These are all opportunities to make internal life shifts that will change our outer habits and happiness to bring more on!
We can look around for signs to get more in tune with our mind, will, and emotion alignment that is our entire soul being.
We can also check in with our our external influenced-internal deeper desires coming from our spirit, Universe, and higher source greater than ourselves.
Our spirit in us never dies as our essence being.
And our thoughts come from higher sources other than our current, past, and future dream thoughts.
We get clues and hints from those around us on our planet and what’s happening to us in our daily lives.
But hints are usually subtle and missed… they’re in the daily miracles and we witness them if we better mind the gap.
I can’t tell you the number of times a day I have a random thought that pops up, and in awareness I notice the external noise in my life repeats the same message or exact words seconds later.
This could come from a television screen, audio on my device, or something I read.
Those aren’t coincidences without meaning.
I use those daily miracle opportunities to mind the gap for a moment to reconnect with my spiritual self and tune out culture.
That helps to connect us to our deeper, higher, and loving selves that block out the fear and unrest sides.
Zooming out, our loving lives are not happenstance and chaos. There’s a productive plan and order. And we’re not alone. Ever.
If we navigate toward our love, then we don’t have to go down dark side trails that lead to rabbit holes that then lead us back to light.
Observe thoughts…
There’s no better way to empower our happiness than changing our thoughts to the better ones we want. It’s also the quickest way to our happiness if we know how to exercise this higher power we possess.
We start by observing or witnessing our thoughts as though we’re an objective third-party to our thoughts.
We’re our own mentor and coach.
This is on top of all the other roles we carry out in our day. So we’re juggling life in the real world and the greater Universe.
And it pays in reward with growth, better life clarity, and alignment.
Then, we can separate ourselves from our negative thoughts holding us back… and non-serving beliefs we could’ve picked up while growing up or along our journey.
To serve us better, we may want to pause and look into those and do shadow work to better understand ourselves while the idea is fresh in mind and so we don’t have to back track.
Then, we can start to take the old beliefs that shaped us and transform them in our happy and evolving better lives when we mind the gap.
A gap question example to ask ourselves:
Do we dislike something in our daily life that we wish were different?
We have better control of our outcome when we mind the gap.
Real Life Example: Why is there a window in our bathroom that we have to clean and make sure that it’s covered so no one peeks in?
Instead we re-write the thought and think: thank you window for being there to give us natural light.
The more daily examples we can flip to the positive, the more we bring light and happiness into our life.
Are we living in joy?
Our subconscious minds, the side that agitates problems, get nourished by feeling bad or pity, so we can end up doing the unhealthy things.
But when we’re lifted up and feeling good, we do the healthy things. And we enjoy more too.
So it’s a double win to find more joy.
That comes about from shutting down bad thoughts in awareness. We’ve saved ourselves wasted time and energy.
Joy is internal and in our control and can be experienced in this moment.
If we find in our free time we’re thinking, I wish I had more time to enjoy… then we’ve missed it because we can focus on enjoying now.
Now is what we have to enjoy.
The glass half or almost full pulls us out of our own misery (that’s our choice).
Doing what it takes to get ourselves to enjoy and feel good again is a healthy priority and can be our goal so we look forward to the rest of our day where we get more than one.
Using our 5 body senses is a good, easy way that we like:
…Maybe we read a good book, watch a feel-good movie, listen to happy music, or do a healthy activity to get there. But we purposefully get there. 👉👈
Then we’re able to forget about time and unproductive thoughts in our happy distraction.
Maybe we do that in quiet moments or in yoga to re-center.
And maybe we go to bed early to start a new day that changes our mood. Or we enjoy a no-butter guiltless snack bite like this honey-glazed matcha lemon coconut cookie.
Those healthy moves turn the tide moment by moment to bounce us back to our productive, happy self.
Then our happy outlook follows and improves, and that helps us to grow our lives, healthy ambitions, and selves.
New way examples include:
-learn a new skill
-contribute to a new group
-volunteer
-develop our better daily habits
-write out our good intentions for the week/year to come
-strive to become the best we can be or a better person
And in our growth, we can pause to check-in and see where we stand in our pride snapshot that can get in the way of our happy, productive lives at any time even if we’re well on our way.
It’s part of the subconscious mind and ego that never shuts down as long as we’re breathing.
Are we free of pride and selfishness?
We know by the relationships we have with others and ourselves whether it’s going well deep down in us.
We feel good or we get a pit in our stomach when a name or thought arises.
People serve as reflections to our lives. At any time we can mess up with them by not trying or being considerate and doing the best we can.
And more easily we can tell if we’ve created barriers over better communication that may be all we need to provide in better thought re-writes in us.
Pride can show up as many flavors… like this mixed bowl of homemade soft ice cream with avocado ice cream.
Pride can show up in some situations, and not others. It’s gray to us unless we make it black and white.
But, when we’re observant of ourselves and our lives, we authentically know if we’ve crossed our lines.
We can also ask ourselves these revealing questions:
Do we always have to be right?
Do we feel superior in certain areas or do we gladly welcome in new ideas and continually willing to learn?
Do we feel we’re entitled to certain things?
Do we dishonor people’s time by showing up when or if we show up?
Do we assume what others think or would say before they’ve spoken? Do we jump to conclusions?
Those are all signs that we have layers of unhealthy pride running our show that are hurting us and our relationships.
One improvement way is if we approach our relationships as though we’re a team.
There’s no “I” in team and that helps with our pride checks.
When we do our part independently, and consider interdependence on the team, then we’re on a balanced, healthy track that builds more healthy pride.
We want to do more for ourselves and others.
If we’re willing to compromise, make adjustments, and re-route while letting go of the outcomes, those help us bypass problems and allow in our happy lives.
Letting go of what’s not working is a good mind the gap example.
We gain more clarity and our lives get easier. We don’t get in our own way.
Staying clear keeps us aligned to our best life in our choosing. 🎉
