Clarity from a contented mind changes everything. It has been the source of all the great medical and scientific discoveries throughout time, and it can lead us through our current COVID 19 crisis – if we let it.

Out of the state of a contented mind, insights surface. It is the insights we release through our deliberate efforts to quieten our mind that will guide us through this pandemic and ultimately leave their mark on the life that we have led. We all do an enormous amount of thinking in a lifetime, but not much of it leaves a mark worth noting. Clear thoughts, clarity that takes us beyond what we previously understood, whether that be in our parenting, our work, the way we live our lives, will leave a mark. They are the thoughts that change lives, for ourselves and others.

All of the clear thoughts I have acted on since COVID 19 began have unfolded from a contented mind, one not in angst with itself. They come when waking from a fresh night’s sleep; whilst pottering in my vegetable garden; whilst riding my bike around my local lake; whilst showering after a day’s work in the garden, or whilst walking my dogs in the local bushland. They certainly don’t come when I am in supermarkets, current epicentres for all our non-contented thinking.

COVID 19 is forcing us to slow down and live simply. We have a choice, panic and rev up, or slow down and listen deeply to what stirs from within. I feel and live better when I rest from the former and cultivate the latter.