Thoughts and Prayers, Love and Light
Thoughts are things and words carry energy. This is a concept I’ve taken seriously-ish for a while. But recently, I’ve been working on being much more intentional about this. Not just in the things I say, but also in trying not to say empty things even when those empty things aren’t a lie…
A food content creator I follow miscarried and posted about it. It didn’t come off as content for likes, but it was very relatable and ironically was high quality content. And it was lovely that there were hundreds of comments offering understanding and support. I almost wrote one…
But, have you ever read some of the comments on these posts, and while the words are nice, the vibe is empty. I didn’t want to add a hollow comment. You know, like ‘thoughts and prayers’ or ‘sending you love and light’. A cynical take would be these words are hollow because their actual concern is for their own exposure. But, in this case, I don’t think the cynical take is actually true. It’s just the words weren’t filled with energy. Sometimes you say, ‘sending you love’, but you didn’t actually send the love.
A stupid analogy is, say someone is thirsty and you go to the kitchen to get them a glass of water, but forget to fill it with water. So the gesture kinda counts, and you really meant well, but you were busy and forgot to get the actual water. The analogy is stupid because this wouldn’t actually happen, but you get what I mean. In the comment scenario, the words are the glass, but the love is the water. You meant well, but you forgot to add the actual love.
The opposite of hollow words is when someone is arguing and you can feel the intensity through the screen. You can almost see them banging away at their keys. And because that energy could be discharged in better ways, someone might reply … ‘touch grass’.
So, that’s what I mean when I say thoughts are things, and words carry energy.
I read this in a book by Swami Sivananda
“You should learn the method of sending out helping, loving thoughts to others and the whole world at large. You should know how to remove distraction and collect all thoughts and send them out as a battalion of helpful forces to do good to the suffering humanity.
- from Mind its Mysteries and Control.
Think helpful thoughts.
So back to the instagram post. I felt real compassion, and almost wrote a comment to express it. But while the words would have been true, the energy was off. In this case, it felt off because I don’t know her IRL, or even as an online friend, so what felt more genuine was to hit the heart button, close my eyes for a moment, draw inspiration from Swami Sivananda and just send her a supportive thought.
Anyhow, this is just something I’m musing on.
But one more thing so that you don’t get the impression that I put on all white, light a candle and sit in lotus before I scroll instagram. I’m mostly scrolling thorough food and surfing porn — getting drawn deeper into maya by candy colored boards. Oh… maybe I do need to light a candle first.
Anyhow, love and light bitches. Love and light.
