What would a Tigress do?

Yesterday I had a moment where I was really struggling with the thoughts in my head. I spend a lot of my waking day, when I’m not distracted by a task in front of me, with really stressful, draining and paranoid thoughts. The cycle of thoughts can be hard to break, especially the longer I let them go on. They really wear me down, physically, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally. I feel like I have aged many years because of the stress and sadness that my thoughts bring me. And the other day I thought to myself, how much more beautiful would I be if I didn’t cry all the time?

This time I was waiting at the tram stop and when I started having these thoughts, and I thought to myself, ‘what would a Tigress do?’ The power of this thought was enough to break my chain of negative thoughts, and I thought about the qualities that a Tigress would have – gentleness, charity, compassion, and wisdom – and how she wouldn’t let thoughts that stress her out and age her enter her mind and her being. This helped me quite a bit and helped to refocus my mind. It was a new and beneficial way that the Tigress teachings impacted on my life.

I’ve tried it again since and haven’t been as successful. I guess at other times thinking ‘what would a Tigress do?’ wasn’t strong enough to battle the barrage of negative thoughts. But I think it will be something that I will keep on trying.

This morning I was thinking that a Tigress would not only be gentle on the world around her, but she would be gentle on herself too. This helped a little bit too.

I hope the Tigress practice will be able to help bring to my life the changes I need to be able to find some peace and happiness.