What Can YOU Do With Your Monkey Mind?
What can you do with your crazy monkey mind?
Have you ever felt like there were a million thoughts in your a head, a million things you had to do and all you wanted to do is make it all stop?
Make it all go away and be in that blissful state of not having to do BE or feel anything you didn’t want to do BE or feel?
Yet everytime you try to make all those thoughts go away, they just keep getting louder and louder and even more insistent that you pay attention to them.
Kind of like the screaming baby on an airplane. If you focus on it, it gets louder and louder.
So how do you make the incessant stream of thoughts go away?
I get asked this question a lot.
And the answer is simple.
You don’t.
You have to stop trying to MAKE them go away and start accepting them for what they are.
Simply thoughts.
Your thoughts are NOT you.
And You are NOT your thoughts.
You are an incredible infinite being who came here to be a human for a while. For some of us it’s a long while, for some of us, it’s only a short while. But the older I get the more I realise just how brief our time here is no matter how many years show on a birth certificate.
So what can you do with all of those swirling ideas, thoughts, fears and inhibitions?
Accept that we all have them.
Accept that they are not you and they are simply thoughts.
You can choose to focus on them or you can choose to watch them fade away until the next thought pops up.
You can choose to watch this cycle and observe it.
Notice it without going down the rabbit hole of following it down every path it tries to lead you down.
Mindfulness meditation is the fastest way I’ve found to remember that I am not my thoughts.
And that alone is often enough to pull me out of depressive thoughts because who wants to get stuck down that rabbit hole?
We all go there sometimes, but the issue is, we don’t have to stay there.
We can choose to remember who we truly are.
Perfectly imperfect beings who came here to love, laugh and enjoy being a human.
The next question most people ask me is “How can I find time of meditation? I’m too busy already.”
And yes, that is a massive problem in our society.
Everyone’s busy.
Too busy.
Too busy to remember to love, laugh and enjoy being a human.
Too busy trying to be more productive.
Too busy to call.
Too busy to write (oh, not that outdated thing! Yes, handwriting is a lost art that is due for a revival.)
Kevin Kelley the famous author and futurist said “Productivity is for robots.” And I ask you, are you acting like a robot in your own life? Have you traded busy for happiness?
How do you stop all the insanity?
How do you stop all the swirling thoughts of every more things you need to do before you sleep?
Mindfulness can take just a moment.
It’s about creating a moment where you focus exactly on what you want to focus on. Perhaps it’s your breath. Perhaps it’s a point in the distance as you gaze out into the ocean. Perhaps it’s looking at a flickering candle flame to help you remember to breathe. Perhaps it’s a moment when you breathe in with intention and choose which thought you would like to focus on for that moment.
Just that moment.
One moment in time.
One moment to BE.