 If You are not Careful – Thoughts Become You!
John is quite miserable for last few months. He lost his job that is bad enough, but he landed up into another peculiar problem. He is simply unable to shut up his mental chatter that has been spinning only around one theme – his ex-boss was totally unfair and treated him in a deeply hurtful manner.
He is unable to shake off what happened a while ago. Though he badly wants too, but the talking machine in his head does not allow him to. He knows fairly well that visiting a psychiatrist would surely give him a fancy disorder label – English alphabets do that very well! And he does not want to pay for the labels!!
John might be an extreme example of an issue we all face — an out of control mental car that follows no traffic rule and an inability to focus attention on things that we know we should be occupied with.
The uninvited mental bully can often possess you like a ghost forcing headaches, insomnia, constant restlessness, stress and anxieties. You become a helpless victim and it follows you wherever you go, like a shadow.
Finding Freedom
In order to gain control over thoughts, you need to find the gap between thoughts. The space between your thoughts is where you have power and freedom. Once the thought train gallops the space diminishes and you become powerless.
When it comes to mind and thoughts the only true solution or therapy is meditation – the therapy of therapies. Only meditation can slow down the super fast thought-express and create space between thoughts for you to live in comfortably. It is only here that you can find stillness and peace otherwise the galloping thought-train is going to tear you into pieces.
Therefore, your peace of mind directly depends upon the room between two thoughts – more room, more freedom. As long as you are established in this room you are safe from, else your mental peace will be torn into pieces. So learn to find this ground and grow roots there.
You are a dignified human being who deserves a private and quiet space away from the senseless noise of the mental broadcast. You must claim your right.
But before that consider this question…
What Makes Thoughts so Powerful?
John is hurting badly because he strongly believes he was treated badly – rather humiliatingly. This belief gives strength to what he thinks and the thoughts, in turn, reinforce what he believes. A vicious cycle, indeed.
Just imagine what would happen if John learns to believe that bad things do happen in life – life is full of ups and downs. It is not always fair. That’s what life is.
Would he now still feel that much hurt? No.
Why? Because hurtful thoughts would not find so strong support from what he believes now. He might still roll in negative thoughts but the intensity would not be so strong.
So the first requirement is to fix the belief system and attitude towards life.
Do you have a correct and balanced perspective of life? How pragmatically you know yourself and your abilities? How do you view yourself? Do you deal with people honestly or through a polished sham persona?
Such questions will constantly challenge your belief system and keep it healthy. When the health of your belief system is good, thoughts can never overwhelm you. If they do occasionally, it will be momentary because the belief system is strong enough to withstand the onslaught of irrational thoughts. They will never be supported by strong enough emotions to throw you into mental turmoil.
Mindfulness Meditation – The Mother of All Mental Therapies
Meditation with the base of mindfulness can correct every type of imbalance that exists inside you. If you practice regularly, it will change everything – how you relate to your thoughts, feelings and emotions, your attitude towards life, people, and every thing around you.
The English word “mindfulness” may not be older than a century or two. But the concept and practice of “mindfulness” is at least 2500 years old. In fact, Buddha’s original technique of meditation takes mindfulness as its base. Applied in the original sense of its meaning, two and a half millennium ago, it means clear comprehension of the reality unfolding moment by moment. Come to think of it, no form of meditation is possible without mindfulness – alertness or conscious presence of mind.
Mindfulness means paying purposeful and nonjudgmental attention in the present moment. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity, and acceptance of present-moment reality. It wakes us to the reality that our lives unfold only in moments.
Applied to meditation practices, it stands for the unbiased observation and acknowledgment of thoughts, feelings and emotions. You notice the thought – say, I am driving – and acknowledge its presence. The thought comes, stays for a while, and goes away. If you notice that you are a little restless, accept it without judgment or analysis –do nothing to like or dislike it. It will also go away.
Clear Comprehension
The central theme of mindfulness meditation practice is development and maintenance of clear comprehension of the perception moment by moment.
It means if you are drinking water, you are really drinking it with complete presence of mental alertness. If you are washing dishes you will be only washing the dishes, with total awareness of every act of the cleaning process. It might appear silly at the first glance – why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point.
You are firmly established in the present moment, conscious of your presence, and conscious of your thoughts and actions. There’s no way you can be tossed around aimlessly like a log here and there on the waves.
The act of choice-less observation turns you from a doer to a watcher – one who does not get involved. The act of watching reduces the number of thoughts that cross your mind. Now the space between thoughts becomes visible showing you the spot to stand on firmly. With practice this spot become bigger giving you more freedom, more control and more power. Now you will not react but respond to events.
Who says you can’t control your thinking?
How to Develop Mindfulness
There are really two ways to go about it.
1. The traditional way is through Vipassana meditation. You can join a 10-day meditation camp organized by Vipassana International Academy. These camps are free and held all over the world. This probably is a good way to learn mindfulness meditation, away from the gimmicks of self-declared gurus.
2. If you are hard pressed for time, the alternate do-it-yourself way is to learn it through a set of audios advancing you in the art of mindfulness in a systematic way. These audios are designed through personal experience by a trained NLP and hypnosis expert and the average lenth of each audio is just 11 minutes. You can explore here this simple yet effective Mindful Awareness Training System.
More Resources
mindfulness and Mental Chatter
Mindfulness – Described in 12 Ways for Beginners
7 Holistic Benefits of Mindfulness |
