Contracted or relaxed

I am going to go on about these two states again as I reckon it is a good place to start with mindfulness of the mind. The general idea is to appreciate that the mind is in either a contracted or a relaxed state and then take it from there. Both states are very powerful. One makes us empowered; we achieve things, we make things happen, we exert ourselves in the world. The other brings contentment and open heartedness; we access the the gateway to a different realm of being - spacious, free.

You might like to notice how things look when we are in these mind states. From a contracted mind state, the idea of relaxing seems like a waste of time - after all, we are not doing anything useful. Conversely, when we are relaxed the world of busy people seems like an exercise in hamster wheel futility. We might realise that these basic mind states are a kind of visor that changes how we see the world - if I wear this outfit then the world is like this. It is quite interesting to see how our perspective changes depending on our mind. How are you seeing these ideas right now?