Welcome to Monday’s Mindful Quote. This is a new tradition at the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday I’m going to cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding.

Here is a poem by 13^th century Sufi Poet, Rumi,:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. 
Don’t go back to sleep. 

You must ask for what you really want. 
Don’t go back to sleep. 

People are going back and forth across the door sill 
Where the two worlds touch. 

The door is round and open. 
Don’t go back to sleep.

 

With the beginning of the week comes an opportunity (which is really available to us at any moment) to recognize that we may be starting the week off from a place of auto-pilot, falling into the same old habitual styles of thinking and behavior that we’re really wanting to change. This might mean engaging in habits that don’t serve your health and well-being (e.g., drinking/eating too much, isolating, too much TV) or with habitual ways of thinking (e.g., negative self talk).

Rumi reminds us that “the breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.” This reminds us that right from the morning time, we can break out of our habitual tendencies and become present. We don’t need to fall back into the “same old, same old.”

What is it that you really want? Re-mind yourself of it and “don’t go back to sleep.”

However, he notes how it is very subtle, we touch the ability to change, going “back and forth across the doorsill.”

He reminds us that the doorsill is there,  it’s “round and open,” deep down we can feel it and may have even tasted it.

Sometimes it takes a reminder like this, to put us into a place where we can see the doorsill, see the hope, to make a change. When we have the experience of making the change, this allows us to trust ourselves that we can indeed do it. We’ll still cross back and forth across the doorsill from time to time, but over time, with practice, we’ll be more awake and cross over less and less.

Give yourself the gift of crossing the doorsill and not “going back to sleep.”

Please share your thoughts, stories, and questions below. Your interaction here provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist in private practice in West Los Angeles and is author of the upcoming book The Now Effect, co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Foreword by Jon Kabat-Zinn, author of the Mindful Solutions at Work App, the Mindful Solutions audio series, and the Mindfulness at Work™ program currently being adopted in multiple multinational corporations. Join Elisha Goldstein's Facebook Community to keep up with important information, tips and events.

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    Last reviewed: 10 Aug 2009