Our minds want to keep us comfortable. They want to keep us in the familiar. "Do that later" they say. "I feel weird about going there so I shouldn't go" they warn us. "Let's think a little bit more about that before making a decision." Our minds have evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to keep us alive and safe. Although the conditions have changed - we are no longer running from saber-toothed tigers - our minds have been slow to catch up. They still want to protect and serve us, 24 hours a day.

And this can lead to so much overthinking and anxiety.

I am focusing on building my new coaching business, to help people see the nature of their minds and how they are always trying to control our environment so that we feel better. And while I am doing this, my mind is trying to protect me too. “Make sure you have the perfect thing to say before you post anything,” “Is Instagram better to post on than Facebook?” “Maybe none of this makes a difference, so why do it?”

And here I am, doing it anyway. Here I am, realizing that my mind wants to keep me safe in my little nest, adding more and more twigs around me, higher and higher, so that nothing can penetrate. So that I don’t have to feel the unease in putting my thoughts out there for others to read. My mind will protest and argue to keep me in my nest because that’s what it knows to do. And I can see that. I can see that that’s just what minds do, and that mine is operating as it was designed.

And that’s all it’s doing.

Can we all begin to see that that’s how minds - ALL minds - work? That these ancient machines are just doing what they’ve always done, keeping us safe from what they perceive as a threatening environment? And that all we have done is simply listened to the compelling statements they make to the point that we have forgotten to experience life just as it shows up?

I think we can.

Our minds want to protect and serve us, and that is a noble act. But what if we don’t need protecting? What if we give our inner security guard a 15-minute break? What if we take that time to look closely at what we’ve believed needs protecting? What happens next?