True Story

My wife is really good at getting “up from the muck.” It’s a lesson I learn from her over and over. She’s a Mennonite from Kansas, and now a free-spirited L.A. gal who somehow can live just above the big city muck! Her upbringing has trained her to always see the good and not dwell in the bad. Simple, right? Maybe. We’ve known each other 7 years, and I can—at this point—tell the positive from the negative of her “up from the muck” approach.

The good far outweighs the bad—like giving in,when you really shouldn’t, to be the better person. Or being willing to be sometimes taken advantage of just to avoid a possible confrontation with a real jerk. I may be more mucked up than her, but I have more street sense. Probably because while she was playing in the wheat fields of Wichita, I was playing in the alleys of Hollywood.

The real problem with muck and what’s REALLY DETRIMENTAL to your psyche is dwelling in it, getting stuck in it, and making it one of your comfort zone.

So what do I mean by the muck? Well, the definition according to the online dictionary is:

noun

1. moist farmyard dung, decaying vegetable matter, etc.; manure.
2.  a highly organic, dark or black soil, less than 50 percent combustible, often used as a manure.
3. mire; mud.

What I really mean is all the “crap” that’s in our head most of the time—the day-to-day struggles we have with comparing ourselves to everyone else both in small and big ways. And not just comparing ourselves, but dwelling in useless anger, jealousy, paranoia’s, condescending and snobby attitudes, thoughts of inadequacies, illusions of grandeur, and the host of other evolved human emotions and behavior that simply drive us batty most of the time.

OK, some of it may be inevitable. But do you really want to spend your time on the muck?

Or should I say knee deep in the muck of your mind. I think not! We would rather spend our time enjoying the moment of an event we are attending or the people in that moment. We feel better when we are free of the muck. Let’s get up from the muck, wipe off our faces, and take a clean breath of muck free air—not really possible in L.A.

How do we get out of the muck?

Simply by recognizing that it is indeed mind manure nothing more than that. Don’t let your ego place something of value on it, because then you’ll be right back face down in the muck. Frankly, with a face full of crap, it’s hard to smile!

Once we recognize muck for what it is and what isn’t, we can use Mindfulness to help us stay on top of the muck or just a little outside of it. But like pigs, if we are used to wallowing in it, it starts feeling comfortable and homey. There are a lot of people that are so at home in the muck, they never realize there’s a place without it.

I promise there is a place without it—and if you’re lucky like my wife, you can be out of it most of the time. She has moments. But if you’re a regular mucked up Joe like myself, we can only hope to get out of it for a period of muck-free time. It could last for an hour or a day.

And we can all use mindfulness as the tool to scrape the muck off our minds and enjoy a more balanced, peaceful and healthy life. Just remember when you do find time to practice mindfulness, don’t muck it all up! Ok, enough said.