I’m not very tech savvy, so if I screw up a bunch of terminology, let’s just call it poetic license, okay?   I’m trying to work out an analogy here.  

When a computer gets sick, either from being overloaded or infected with a virus, it does all sorts of things. It gets sluggish, it redirects internet searches, it receives  a lot of spam, it sends messages to people that you had no intention of sending, random pop-ups constantly pop-up… All sorts of things happen.

I have no idea how to fix these things.  When my PC gets locked up I give it the 3 finger salute, Ctrl+Alt+Del, and hope it will fix itself. If it doesn’t work I hit the keys again. And again. And again. Until it does work.  

When weird things start to happen with my phone I turn it off, count to 10, and turn it back on again. These methods have served me well so far.

I’ve also heard that sometimes the only way to make things better is to restore your device back to its factory default settings. Wipe it clean, and start again.

(This is where I make the leap.)

Imagine that your brain is an electronic device.  Imagine, if you will, that you are an i-Being.

You are trudging along, living your life, thinking your thoughts, and something doesn’t seem right. In fact, all sorts of things are happening.

Your mind is getting sluggish, bogged down with questions and details and analysis. You can’t seem to trust your quick decisions any more.  

Your thoughts are becoming like unwanted pop-ups. You try to X them out but they keep popping back up.  

People are getting the wrong messages from you. They don’t seem to understand what you are trying to convey.  

In some situations, you completely shut down, paralyzed and unable to move forward. 

Perhaps some the toxic thought processes have morphed into a virus and affected your entire system. It might be time to restore your brain back to its default settings!   Wipe it clean, and start again.

If someone were to ask you what your default setting was, what would your answer be? 

At this time in your life, when you wake up in the morning, what is your default setting?

Is it hopefulness? joy? love of life? Is it disinterest? disgust? defeat?

Is your default setting different on a Saturday morning than it is on a Monday?    Is it different when you have plans for a day of leisure than it is on a day of work? Is it different when you are going to spend the day with someone or something that lights you up than when you have to spend it on obligation?

If you could choose only one default mode, your own personal factory default mode, and operate from that place every moment of every day, what would it be?

Would it be negativity, aversion and apprehension? Or would it be positivism, compassion and openness?

I know that my default mode varies from day to day, situation to situation, person to person.  I subconsciously reset it to a specific mode each time I change tasks.  I have a  mode for writing, for teaching yoga, for dealing with arguments between my daughters, for being  stuck in traffic.

I know the modes I like best, the ones in which I feel the most authentic, the most at peace.  The dancing mode, the laughing with friends mode, the completely relaxed mode. Those bring me closest to the person I was meant to be, straight out of the box. Straight Outta Carton. (I crack myself up!)

I imagine living all of life in that mode, pausing and responding to everything from that factory-place, instead of reacting to things from some overloaded, virus infected place.

This is where I hope meditation is taking me. It’s taking me beyond control, alternate, and delete.  It’s taking me back to my factory default.

If you could restore yourself to your factory setting, what would that setting be?
  
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