Your Mind Is The Monkey No One Warned You About
It’s a common saying – your mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy.
Most of us have felt both. The funny thing though is that when our mind is being our worst enemy, we hardly realise it. It takes months of brain training to be able to identify when this is happening and nip it in the bud.
Have you ever found yourself feeling dull, low, sad, angry etc. but not knowing why? I’m sure you have.
We tend to get into negative thoughts and end up feeling miserable. We end up believing things that may or may not true. The truth though is that most of what we believe as the “truth” might be a matter of perception and what we tell ourselves.
Here’s something interesting:
- You think you’re lonely, you’re probably not. Reach out to anyone around you.
- You think you like someone, you probably don’t. Think about what attracts you to them.
- You think you’re not good enough, you definitely are. Acknowledge your smallest wins.
- You think you’re stuck, you’re most certainly not. List down your immediate goals.
Humans are scientifically more prone to retaining negative information. It’s no surprise then that the same applies to our thoughts. Positive thoughts pass by quickly and negative thoughts stick around longer. This is commonly known as the negativity bias. Read more here.
Meditation teaches us to observe our thoughts. The practice of sitting still and letting our thoughts come to us teaches us to look at our thoughts from an objective place and decide which thoughts to pay attention to and which ones to let pass.
Personally, I’ve found that even 2–3 minutes of meditation in the morning helps me be more intentional with my thoughts and how I react to situations.
Over time, I’ve learnt to identify BS thought patterns. This can be about integral issues that needed to be addressed or everyday inconveniences. Identifying the underlying cause of what bothers us is essential to being in a good state of mind.
Here are some things that help.
- Meditation and mind training: learn to acknowledge and let go of passing thoughts through meditation. I use white noise to channel my focus or simply count my breaths. This is a cheat, but it’s good for the days your mind is particularly cluttered.
- Journaling and reflection: write down your thoughts and let them flow. Ask yourself what’s troubling you and follow up each answer with a ‘why?’ to arrive at a solid answer.
- Talking to a friend or family member: we tend to underestimate this but it literally always helps.
- Speaking out loud to yourself: i was hesitant about this but it works like magic. Hearing yourself speak and realising what you actually mean through the process is funny, amazing and powerful.
- Building faith: it can be in anything. Religion, God, yourself, nature, anything.
- Using an app like Stoic: this is all easy to say but hard to put into practice. Apps like Headspace, Stoic etc. help! Headspace is great for guided meditations and Stoic is an amazing wellness app which includes daily reflection prompts, meditation and breathing guides and more.