{"id":2,"date":"2023-07-21T23:04:06","date_gmt":"2023-07-21T23:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2024-11-18T00:57:24","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T00:57:24","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/?page_id=2","title":{"rendered":"About me and my stone balancing journey."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How did my stone balancing journey begin?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a now a professional artist. But about a decade ago, I went through a difficult time. I had seen someone balancing a rock at the beach while out walking to clear my mind. I wondered if anyone could do it, or whether it required a magic skill. It turns out that anyone can<\/em> do it. It just takes determination. Or “Mind over matter” as we often say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I found a lovely pebble and took it home to try. After a lot of trying, I eventually succeeded. What a great feeling that was, the very first time! I carried on from time to time, getting the feeling of success each time. That never really wears off. But I was never aware of my mental state, although time appeared to fly by when I did it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go forward a decade, and three further life changing events came my way in quick succession. I started doing more balancing as a diversion when I was out walking on my own. I had been playing with mindfulness for a while, but it was very difficult to switch off into the state required, that’s even if you understand what’s expected! Concentrating on your breathing or watching a candle flame flickering is very difficult. You don’t really understand why you are doing it, and it’s easy to get distracted. For me, I struggled with the idea, despite trying at different times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One day, I was on the beach and I started balancing some stones. I thought I would record the waves splashing onto the beach while I mucked about so I could have some nice sounds of the sea for later. About ten minutes elapsed, and I had balanced the stone successfully, to my great joy. It was quite difficult because it was windy! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stopped the recording, and I left the stone to nature to knock it over. When I got home, I listened to my recording. I realised that it was really over 30 minutes in length! I had created a time warp in my mind!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The penny dropped, and I realised that I had been meditating actively. Psychologists now call this “flow”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How did my stone balancing journey begin? I am a now a professional artist. But about a decade ago, I went through a difficult time. I had seen someone balancing a rock at the beach while out walking to clear my mind. I wondered if anyone could do it, or whether it required a magic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/front-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","missing-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestonebalancedmind.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}