The Ant Apocalypse

I found ants in my office yesterday. Maybe 20 - randomly throughout the afternoon and evening. Little tiny black ones. I can’t see where they’re coming in. There is no apparent place, no line of ants marching in perfect formation from outside … just randomly on the beige carpet in the office I’ll see a little one and then another. I vacuumed really well before I went to bed, making sure the floor was perfectly clean.

They’re so tiny, hardly noticeable if you’re not looking, but for some reason knowing that they are present makes me a little on edge. Which is silly, because it’s tiny ants, you know? It’s not like they’re going to hurt me and it’s not like one of those horror movies where you wake up in the morning and go and open the office door and the room is a new pulsing ant hive with millions of ants crawling everywhere in an ant labyrinth so complex and alive and crawling that the only possibility is to move, or maybe torch the place and start over?

I might have thought that whole scenario this morning before I went and checked. Thankfully there were only 4. 4 tiny ants. For today at least, it appears that I am safe from a sudden Ant Apocalypse.

Isn’t it interesting how detailed the scenarios in our minds can be? We think and ponder and make up what COULD happen and what we’re fearful MIGHT happen … so much so that we spend much of our thinking time focused on these “what ifs.”

What if that volcano blows up and causes the earthquake they’re predicting?

What if his rash gets worse and we have to go to the hospital because it is so terrible?

What if there is a tsunami when all the kids are at school and I have no way of getting to them?

What if they find out what I’m really like and they dislike me and think negatively of me?

What if she sees my tattoo and judges me?

What if there is an actual zombie apocalypse and the world spirals down into oblivion?

What if I wear this outfit and I look terrible and people stare at me and point?

What if? What if …

We’re human. We DO this. It’s our thing, right? We create. And when we don’t understand or aren’t aware of our power we create NEGATIVE energy through the continual thoughts that play over and over and over in our minds like a never ending horror movie. What we subject ourselves to, in energy, literally shapes and CREATES our frequency (vibration) … and what frequency our energy is, is where we dwell … we can only receive experiences within our frequency.

Here’s the thing that’s so crazy, MOST of what we imagine, most of what we create in our minds, most of the things that we picture going wrong or being terrible, etc. DON’T ACTUALLY HAPPEN. They never happen! That means we’re creating an energy atmosphere based on illusion!

I worried in my bed this morning about the Ant Apocalypse in my office that I was sure to come into when I opened the door. Did I truly believe that the ants had overrun my house and were waiting to pounce on me the moment I opened my office door … Jumanji style? No. I didn’t. But did I spend time imagining if they HAD? I did. I’m sorry to say I had worry over the ants, which means that I altered my energy in a negative way based upon nothing. Illusion is nothing after all …

Isn’t that silly? Why am I willing to live in that place of stress and worry over NOTHING?!

We do what is familiar right? It is a HABIT. Worrying about what people think is familiar to me, so I live there, in that frequency. Stressing, for some people, over the terrible things in the world that are GOING to happen and create chaos, is familiar, so they dwell in that frequency.

Whatever you focus on, whatever you dwell on, whatever you think about, whatever you put into your thoughts and mind creates your frequency … those things that you dwell on align you to A frequency … it can be positive, it can be negative, it can be chaotic, it can be peaceful, it can be full of worry and stress or it can be full of beauty and love. YOU determine where you live.

Habits are hard to break though. You have to WANT to change, you have to even be aware enough to know that you have negative habits that are holding you back. It takes effort. It takes choosing it over and over and over again. As often as you chose the negative thoughts, you have to shift out of those into more positive ones. Continually, until you create a NEW habit of thinking in a new way.

When I find myself stressing and worrying over nothing (because all illusion is nothing, so it’s all just nothing) I must choose to let go of that nothingness and turn to what’s real. What’s real is always whatever is happening NOW. It’s not what I fear will happen in the future, and it’s not what I regret happening in the past, it’s now.

Being present in the moment is the surest and quickest and easiest way to shift out of negative thought patterns into more positive REAL ones.

Why does it work? It works because you don’t have to DO anything, you don’t have to try to think “better” thoughts when you don’t know how, you don’t have to change what you’re doing in an awkward way – you only have to become aware of what is right in front of you and fully focus on that. Take your mind away from what it’s imagining will happen, or remembering what did happen, and stressing over all the ways it will go wrong, or could have gone better and just be in the moment. Just do now. Focus fully and wholly on what is in front of you. Use ALL of your senses to become fully in the moment and breathe it in, and let go of all the other mind chatter that pulls you into illusory thoughts, focus, and negativity.

If you know you want to shift out of negative thought patterns, and you know you want to “let go” of all the stuff that isn’t real, it’s not easy if you’re constantly telling yourself to let go. How can you let go of something if you’re still focused on it? You can’t!

It’s like sitting in a chair looking at a computer screen and telling yourself NOT to look at the screen but you’re still in the chair facing the computer screen. The amount of effort you’re using to try to “let go of” looking at the computer screen, the fact that you’re saying to yourself “don’t look at the computer screen. don’t look at the computer screen. computer screen computer screen …” – it is keeping you still focused on the computer screen. Even though you’re telling yourself not to look at it, you’re still focused ON it.

The way to shift your focus AWAY from something, the way to let it go … is to turn away from it. If you don’t want to look at the computer screen then walk away from it. Put another thing in front of you so you can’t even see the computer screen if you tried. And if it’s thoughts, you can’t exactly walk away from those, they’re there … but you CAN put something else into your mind to focus on.

To “turn away from” your negative thoughts, put better, lighter, more “present” thoughts in their place. If you’re stressing over something you know is going to happen in the future and you’re picturing all the ways it will go wrong … stop, become aware that you’re dwelling on nothing, and then purposefully focus on whatever is in front of you with ALL your senses firing so you are fully there.

Are you doing the dishes? Frequently these “mindless” tasks are optimal times for our thoughts to go crazy creating scenarios and what ifs and dwelling on stuff that we fear, worry, and stress over.

To let go of the worry in your mind, take a deep breath, look around you, be fully present in the room at the sink, feel the water on your hands and the sound of the scrubbing and the water running … focus on the dish you’re cleaning and look at it, be fully present in the task. Now, think of 10 things you LOVE about that moment. Feel the gratitude for the warm clean water that comes out of the faucet, the dishes you have, the food you’re scrubbing off those dishes, the legs you’re standing on, the lungs moving air in and out of your body … all of the things that you have to be grateful for IN THAT MOMENT can be listed in your mind and it will shift your focus off of the future impending doom onto the moment and the beauty that exists in whatever that moment is.

EVERY time you’re worried, every time you’re stressing, every time you’re dwelling on nothing … do this. Become present in the moment, whatever the moment is (use your senses to be IN that moment), and be grateful. Look for things in that moment that fill you with gratitude … there is ALWAYS something to be grateful for. Even if it’s always the same 10 things, “I have eyes to see, a heart that beats, lungs that move, skin that protects my body, a roof over my head, the ability to smile, etc.” whatever the things are, feel them, focus on them, dwell on THEM and you WILL shift your energy out of that negative place into peace.

Try this … it works. Putting a NEW focus in our thoughts – having a new thing to focus on completely shifts us out of old patterns into NEW patterns that are healthier, happier, lighter and energy LIFTING! It’s about replacing old thought patterns with new ones. That replacing of the old with new is HOW you let go.

Don’t try to tell yourself to let go over and over and then beat yourself up for not being able to … letting go takes movement of thought from what we don’t want to think about to what we DO want to think about – a new thing, a more joyful space, a lighter energy. (Gratitude is always a good “filler” to use to replace negativity.)

Tomorrow morning when I wake up, I’m going to sit up in bed, and before I meditate I’m going to think of all that I’m grateful for and NOT allow my thoughts to drift to Ant Hive Office Space … instead I’m going to focus on the fact that I’m alive and that it’s a new day. New days are ALWAYS filled with pure potential and that IS something to be grateful for.

~ Check out my blog for more articles like this one! >> honorthismoment.com