Stream of Consciousness

Imagine a river or stream. You’re sitting on the bank of this river, where boats and ships are sailing past. While the stream flows past your inner eye, I ask you to name each one of the “vessels” or thoughts floating by. For example, one of the boats could be called “my anxiety about tomorrow.” Or along comes the ship “objections to my spouse” or “I don’t do that well.” Every judgment that you pass is one of these boats. Take the time to give each one of them a name, and then let it move on.

For some people this is a very difficult exercise because we’re used to jumping aboard our boats immediately; in doing so, we give them “gas”! As soon as we own a boat and identify with it, it picks up its own energy. We have to practice un-possessing, letting go, detaching from our thoughts and feelings, or they own us. With every idea or image that comes into our head, we have the opportunity to say, “No, I’m not that; I don’t need that; that’s not me.” This frees you to intentionally choose your divine identity instead.

How Trevor Noah went from biracial youth in S. Africa to leading light on U.S. TV

Critics fault him for appearing too detached on-screen, where Stewart delivered arias of indignation. “But Trevor hasn’t earned the right to be that angry about what’s happening in America,” Opio says. “And where we’ve come from, we’ve seen worse things.”

.. Nor is the writing staff’s task easy. “It’s very difficult writing for me,” he says. “You are writing for a biracial South African, who is from a world you cannot lock down. You cannot understand my experience. It is the black experience, but it’s a different black experience.”