Hi everyone, Culy Taylor here and welcome to Mojo Monday. Today, I want to share with you a zen Cohen and it's one that I heard recently by a lecture that I was listening to by a Japanese psychologist. And if you haven't heard of a zen coin, it's a short, often kind of puzzling phrase or question that isn't meant to be solved like a riddle. It's something that you
kind of need to just sit with. And Cohen's a designed to move us beyond our usual black and white thinking and into more deeper reflection if we allow ourselves the time to do that. They don't necessarily give us answers, but instead a Cohen will help us become more comfortable with ambiguity and open up sort of insight about life, ourselves and our true nature. But the particular con that I have chosen today is actually quite simple, now that
I've said all that, and this is it. Willows are green, flowers are red. That's it. So it's a very simple statement. And you might be thinking right now, so what, But stay with me on this because it's in its simplicity there's something a lot deeper. And I actually really really love this. So often we move through life wishing things were different. We try and fix and control and improve and change. We judge how we feel. I often hear clients say I shouldn't be feeling like this. You know,
my life is great. But that's resistance, and that's the struggle that we often have. You know, we wish we were more confident, or more calm, or less less anxious, more successful. We wish other people wouldn't be the way they are, you know, that they'd agree with our views, particularly political views right now, which is causing a lot of divide with people. You know, we wish people would call us more often, or they'd complain less. Whatever it is.
But I'll read the con to you again. Willows are green, flowers are red, So the willow can't be anything but green right now, and the flower is simply red. And if they wanted to be different colors, they couldn't. So what if just for a moment, we stopped resisting, We stopped resisting reality. What if even when we're anxious or sad or frustrated, we allowed those feelings to be there.
What this does is really challenges our Western mindset, where we focus so often on fixing and controlling, and that's when we struggle because our emotions are inevitable. But what if there was no fixing, so there was no judgment and no commentary about our emotions or our thoughts or other people just this is how it is. So that's the invitation here today is to meet the moment, the feeling, the person in front of you just as they are.
And this doesn't mean that we agree with every opinion of other people, or we like everything that's happening, or we like what we're feeling. It's not passive, and it doesn't mean we're giving up. It just means that we're really clear, this is what is here right now. So Shima Marisa, the Japanese psychologists who was around the time of Freud in the nineteen twenties, he spoke about the gap between reality and how we want things to be.
So when we stop arguing with reality, we stop focusing on the shoulds and the shouldn'ts, then that gap can become smaller and we create kind of a space, a space to a space to breathe. For starters, it kind of gives this reprieve from the struggle, but it's also a space to respond from wisdom rather than reactivity, and a space to really choose your path. And that's what mental fitness. This is really a part of being mentally fit. So not pushing away difficult thoughts or emotions, but letting
them be a part of your present experience. So today or this week, let that coen just sit with you. If something challenging shows up, maybe you feel flat or overwhel or you're behind in work or UNI, or maybe somebody said something that hurts you, just say to yourself, willows are green, flowers are red. This is what's here right now, and then you can ask yourself what can I do with what is This is the action part
of this. So when we can be fully present, make room for all that's there without pushing it away or needing it to be different, then we gain clarity. We grain space to see what really matters, and then from that place the next step becomes clear. So that's living with purpose. So thank you so much for listening to Mojo Monday this week. I hope you carry this little zen moment with you through the week. I know I
will already have. I've asked myself for I've said that phrase quite a few times willows are green, flowers are red, just to help me get really present and stop resisting what is. So I hope you all have a great week and I will catch you next week. See you