What am I passionate about?

(Image courtesy of Stock Exchange: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/470762)














Over on his blog "Slow down fast", David Bohl talks about authenticity and telling people what you're passionate about.

While I think the post is great in and of itself, and that being authentic around our friends about the things we're passionate about *is* a critical part of having an authentic friendship, that's not actually what I want to post about.

Instead, it's the gut-level response I had to reading David's opening question paragraph:

"Let’s assume you had five minutes to give a speech. You would receive a very large sum of money if you gave a speech that the judges considered “passionate.” You choose the topic, you write the speech. You give a passionate speech, you get the money.What would you talk about?"

As I read it, my answer just jumped out, fully formed and far too intense within my mind's ear to ignore. For me? What fascinates me more than almost anything is the human mind and how it works. I'm interested in the workings of my own mind, and that of other people's. I'm wildly curious about how our different minds work together; how we think, how we communicate, what motivates us, and what gets in our way (or makes us get in the way of ourselves). And I'm enthralled by the potential for healing that understanding the mind can create.

I'm also fascinated by the way our minds perceive the different realms of experience: the physical, the spiritual, the emotional and the imaginary. What's more, I'm thoroughly fascinated by the very real possibility that these 'different' realms might not be nearly as different as common wisdom tells us they are (or at the very least, that the boundaries between each realm might be a little... fuzzier than common wisdom assumes they are). And because I'm fascinated, I'm passionate about constantly, as often as possible, as much as possible, learning more.

That fascination and passion is why I originally chose a psychology degree back when I was fresh out of highschool. It's why I'm studying for a degree in Communications now a decade later. It's why I learned to meditate, and part (if not all) of why I trained as a priestess. And yeah; it's why I keep this blog.

You see, whatever else they may be doing for me spiritually (and I wouldn't want to discount that aspect of practice), one of the biggest attractors about regular mindfulness and meditation for me is that they help me notice and understand how my mind works. They feed my passion to learn and to understand the workings of my own mind; and through that, of human minds in general. They support (or refute) the theory I learn in books and from discussions with other people. They are , in a very real sense, part of my learning process. And through their association with that learning, I've become passionate about meditation and mindfulness in and of themselves.

So when David asks me to imagine that I have to write a passionate speech about something, I don't need to wonder whether I'd be able to talk with real passion about a given topic, or even what I'd end up writing about. I just remember the posts I've made recently on this blog when I've discovered something new about meditation or mindfulness, or about myself and the way my mind works, or the similarities or differences I've noticed between my mind and someone else's. Oh yeah, this is what I'm passionate about.

Thank you, David, for reminding me of that :-)

Fascinated (and passionate) blessings



Starfire