This article was originally published in July 2016.
There’s an inner churning that happens. 
Or a circling, perhaps. Like a dog circling the rug, looking for a soft place to rest.
That circling is what happens when a mind is disturbed. I don’t mean disturbed in any sort of stable or unhealthy way. Disturbed is a temporary experience, not a judgment.
The mind is disturbed in that the natural order of things has been altered. There’s something added; something occurring that’s not innate.
***
We go through life as if we know what’s coming.
We are filled to the brim with invisible assumptions, expectations, and future projections. We are so packed full of ideas that we don’t realize how much we’ve artificially constricted our lives. We don’t remember there is another way.
So we fall for the illusion that we know what’s coming and then there is a shock. He’s not the person you thought he was. Things don’t turn out the way you expected. This isn’t what you signed up for.
Like dropping a pebble into a perfectly still lake, the new thought that arises within you creates a disturbance. You feel it intensely because, but for that disturbance, you are perfectly still.
The ripples extend and there is upset, confusion, discomfort.
In its disturbance, your mind circles and churns, looking for a soft place to rest. What’s true now? What can you expect? How did you make such a misjudgment? Minds aim to make sense of life in order to calm those disturbances.
***
How does the lake return to calm after the pebble is dropped? Naturally. Effortlessly. No help is needed. The same is true of inner disturbance.
Eventually, your mind quiets and you meet up with your soft place to rest. It finds you; it was there all along. The circling and churning end until the next disturbance.
Meet this process with understanding and impartiality. It is part of the perfect design of life.
