Note: I am opening up my blog to occasional guest posts from other bloggers. This first one is from Carin Channing, who blogs at Stay Open: Spiritual and Self-Care Space.

I get the sense of dragging myself forward from the chest or the gut into some unknown where I think I should be arriving.

I read this tonight:

“My judgments, my ego-tripping, my attempts to plan and to know what the future holds or to try to drive the future in any way — all futile and hung up on a desperate mind, clinging to an image of importance that simply cannot stand against the field of a quiet mind.”

I wrote it a few months ago on the Be Here Now blog.

It continues to be relevant. Especially about the attempts to plan and to know what the future holds. I really know nothing about anything. I write about stuff, but it’s playing. It’s creating if I’m not thinking about it and it’s just coming out my fingers. So. The image of importance. There’s this thing that thinks there is such a thing as good/bad. And it’s a noisy voice, and not only is it noisy within, but also in the supposed without – that is, that which appears outside of us. The straddling of the two worlds, said a friend to me, is the hell you are in.

The world where there’s right/wrong. This pulls on me. Wants my attention. Wants to hold my head under water.

Today the Text Support message that I sent out said:

“The overall ‘why’ doesn’t matter. How would you know anyway? All you need to know, and will always know, is the next right thing to do. Even if it’s do nothing.”

And as I sit here and type and mess around a little on the internet, I keep feeling these pulls (as mentioned above). The thoughts are about 1) eating, 2) exercising, 3) taking a bath. The pull keeps telling me which one I’ll do when and justifying its existence by asserting that there’s a should out there somewhere about the order of things and about anything else beyond sitting here typing.

I exercised every day no matter what for two years. Even if I just did a little movement or stretching, it counted. Some months ago I let it slip and now, well, I exercise when I do. And what I’m faced with, what’s left, is this massive judgment, insisting that something other than the natural flow of the moment is what’s necessary and somehow even morally correct.

I remain healthy and am not stagnant. A shifting occurred. Nothing occurred. All of that is past. All of everything is past except the exhale I’m doing right now and the gnat that is flying across my field of vision and the heat of the laptop under the heels of my hands.

What is it that I don’t trust?

See? The two worlds. Being guided by the mind, or simply being guided.

Not like either is right or wrong. {giggling now} It’s just that opinions are. Look, there goes one now.

To continue the conversation with Carin, please also visit Stay Open: Spiritual and Self-Care Space. Become a fan of Stay Open Facebook Page. Submit questions to (submit questions to carina@nowstayopen.com).