Tag: mindful

How do you expend your mental energy?

One of the lessons I’ve received and continue to receive when needed is about how I expend my mental energy. When I find myself carried away with thoughts about a frustrating experience I had, I am reminded that it’s over and it’s time to be present. Even when I am present and dealing with say a customer service dilemma, or a challenging social situation, this is an opportunity to learn. There seem to be plenty of these opportunities in today’s climate and on one such occasion, while I felt my frustration begin to build, I was taken through various outcomes in my mind and realized that under no circumstances would expressing anger serve me or help to improve the situation. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t encouraged to be persistent when it was appropriate, I just didn’t expend the kind of intense energy on the matter that I might have previously and in the end, things always worked out better for me. The outcome was always measured by how I felt, not what transpired. However, soon I began to notice that I not only felt better but the overall outcomes improved considerably. I made better choices because I was in a better frame of mind to do so.

The energy of the mind is something that is worth our attention. It is an environment that needs to be taken care of just as our physical environment needs tending. The thoughts we entertain send signals to our body and out into the world around us. Both our bodies and the world responds. When I invest in fear, worry and doubt, I end up feeling tired and experience a loss of energy. This state is reflected outward to others around me and they respond accordingly. There may be superficial activities and responses that seem to ignore this inner state but on a deeper level, this is what we’re all responding to all of the time and this is the level at which real change is possible.

We are sending out signals all the time with our energy and when we choose to engage in those highly charged negative emotional exchanges, we’re sending out the kind of signals that invite that same negative charge in whatever form it may take. Understanding this helped me to take an active role in what I allowed to fill my mind because it was my engagement with certain kinds of thoughts that ultimately sparked this negative energy. We all have a choice in this. Our thoughts are not who we are but they affect how we feel and behave and that affects everything else. I began to actively refuse to entertain thoughts that I realized were continually intruding and causing harm. I used visualization techniques that seemed strange to me at the time but I soon realized that the method isn’t what matters, it’s the results that matter and the results were and still are consistently good. I began to treat negative thoughts as though they were people intruding in a harmful way and I would no longer engage with them.

This is a powerful exercise. It taught me that by using my will to cast out these intrusive and negative thoughts, I was beginning to take control of my life. I soon began to do this gently but firmly with other influences in my life (including some people and media) that promoted the kind of negative and fearful thoughts I worked so hard to clean out. It became a ripple effect showing me clearly how my state of mind reflected outwards. I started to become more sensitive to my energetic state and more discerning about what I took in.  By creating a more peaceful space inside of me and around me, I began to invite the more positive experiences and the kind of community that I had been craving. It has been the most liberating experience of my life and it all happened because I began to pay attention to what was going on in my mind and to actively participate in changing it in a positive way. We all have the power to do this and if we are willing, it can change everything.

Observing my thought patterns… the reason I never have to watch disaster movies

Inner work has been quite an adventure for me at times. I began this inner work after becoming involved in shamanism and ultimately working with shamanic plant medicines such as Ayahuasca and Iboga. These plants can do amazing things to propel people forward into a state of improved mental health, but often the work begins after taking the medicine. The most popular term that people use to describe the application of the gifts that these medicines bring is ‘integration’. I have worked steadily over the last couple of years on integration and one of the most important aspects of this work is observing the mind. I have come to a point where I’ve been able to observe my thoughts and begin to change the kinds of thoughts that occupy my mind. Some repeating themes have surprised me. I wrote previously about getting acquainted with The Bully Within and the inner adventures continue.

Becoming mindful can be a bigger experience than I had ever imagined. Of course, I had never imagined becoming ‘mindful’. I just wanted to cure myself of a deep four year depression. This led me down an astonishing path of revelations that continue to amaze me daily. A requirement of my healing was to observe my thought patterns. What havoc! I will start out by saying that this is an ongoing process as is all of this inner work but one of the first things that struck me was how often I had conjured up images of disasters. It reminded me of listening to my mother’s worries when we were kids. “I could see you falling and breaking your back and the ambulance coming!” There were lots of references to the spinal cord. My father was a big one for “you’ll crack your head open!”. This always inspired interesting images in our little heads but the point is, that although there were some accidents when we were kids (I was one of 5 children) reality could never compete with the incessant vivid catastrophes that took place in my mother’s mind – it simply wasn’t possible. Well, as it turns out, I take after her and far too many of the thoughts that came to my mind with alarming frequency were disaster scenarios. Not only related to my child, although that one I’m sure many can understand.

I was surprised to discover that I was haunted by such thoughts on a regular basis. The internal stress that this caused was immeasurable not to mention the effect it had on my outlook. These thoughts would come unbidden at all times of the day, completely unrelated to anything I was doing at times. I would have images of accidents and all manner of painful or dangerous events happening either in my house or on the street.. things falling, me falling, tripping and getting caught under a bus, stepping on cut glass, getting electrocuted, fires, injuries, natural disasters, you name it. Granted, sometimes these things were related to issues I was dealing with i.e. while cleaning up a broken glass or getting on a bus but I realized after observing my thoughts long enough that this was sort of like a program that continued to run completely independent of anything I was involved with at the time. These little images flew into my mind and out again and I was left with the impression of them and the internal reaction to these impressions. It’s hard to believe that this had been happening for so long without me being aware of it or taking note. I guess I had never thought that this was something that could be changed or that I had any control over. But I did and once I became aware of this pattern, I began to address it and intentionally change it.

I remember that the idea of being on the edge of my seat in a movie theatre (or in my living room for that matter) was never appealing for me and now I understand this better. I had a disaster movie marathon running through my mind on a regular basis. Having worked to change the landscape of my mind, I admit that I’m still not in any way tempted to watch disaster flicks.. I don’t think it was ever meant to be my thing but I’m grateful to be at liberty to find my ‘edge of the seat’ experiences in other ways. Of course there was a point where I breathed easier and was pleased with my progress about this. After some diligent work I can honestly say that this doesn’t occupy my mind much at all anymore. Did I feel peaceful as a result? Of course, and then I was presented with the next challenge but this is a path I have chosen and there’s always more work to do.

I will admit to having more of an attraction to adventure films rather than disaster films (or thrillers) and although that’s still true, I have found that this inner adventure is quite enough for me at times. This work has also involved its fair share of external adventures as well involving travel and plant medicines (travel on many levels) so I think I am sufficiently sated in terms of stimulation. And as far as movies go, there are times that this work for me involves watching films and receiving lessons, insights and healing using this medium as a tool. It is a very customized regime that is also ongoing. I will write about this more fully in another post but for the time being, I just wanted to share about the nature of my thoughts past and present, both thoughts I have worked to oust from my mind and thoughts about observing my thoughts. Is that enough thinking for today? I think so, we can always move onto feelings soon, which is quite the adventure too.

Healing The World of Conflict: Inner & Outer

Some of the major issues in the world that loom large and seem ominous are larger and more extreme versions of the kinds of issues we face in every day situations in our own lives and more importantly, of issues we face or often don’t face within ourselves. One of the things that I have discovered on my path of healing is how much conflict there has been within me. It’s been the focus of most of the work I‘ve been guided to do on myself, and it’s been an incredibly insightful experience. Once I got past the ego driven resistance that didn’t want to acknowledge there’s anything ‘wrong’ with me, I was able to learn about the things I needed to change to help make my life experience richer, more peaceful and more fulfilling.

The truth is that there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with me. This notion of being ‘wrong’ was a misinterpretation. It was my response to the idea of recognizing the things within me that I needed to address. Even the worst parts of my behavior were and are just a reflection of internal conflict and addressing this internal conflict is an ongoing process. Orienting myself to this view has helped me a great deal. It has helped me to become more gentle with myself and to become less judgmental of others. The reason that many of us have a strongly negative reaction to this notion of being wrong is because we associate this wrong behavior with who we are but deep inside, we know that this wrong behavior is not who we are at all. In fact, it’s at odds with who we are and therein lies the conflict.

Working through internal conflict can be challenging but so consistently rewarding and with this work comes a change in perspective. A deeper understanding of our own inner world can lead to a better understanding of our outer world. It doesn’t take long to see parallels between internal conflicts and the conflicts that exist within close personal relationships. From there you can see how our immediate community and ultimately, the global community is a reflection of these same kinds of conflicts that exist within us all. It’s clear to me now that we’ll never be able to solve these greater world issues of conflict unless we can recognize and begin to address our own internal conflicts.

I think that this is part of what Jesus meant in the “throw the first stone” lesson. Billions of people have been profoundly moved by similar tenets in religions and belief systems worldwide for a reason. There’s a part of us that recognizes the truth of it. Underneath all of the conflict inside of us resides a source of wisdom – an intuition – that can be the guiding principal in our lives. This guiding principal contains the essence of who we really are. It is a unique aspect of our being that is often ignored to our detriment. By simply forming the intention of connecting with this wisdom, we acknowledge its existence and from there, the journey of healing ensues. If we allow ourselves to be guided by this internal wisdom we may begin to address internal conflict that reflects outwardly and in doing so, we take the most important step towards addressing conflict in this world.