Convincing My Own Mind

My mind is very busy and seems to run away with itself. I have tried like the dickens to slow down the barrage of self sabotaging thoughts that I find myself having throughout my days and nights. The crazy thing is that I have many good things going for me in my life right now. How can I convince my own mind of that?

Ahh the mind of the drunken monkey. This is a metaphor that is used in Buddhism to illustrate the challenges of reaching a quiet mind. Mind chatter is the ongoing conversation that your unconscious mind is having with your conscious mind. The chatter is disorganized and tends to create a feeling of complete chaos. It is as if we are completely distracting ourselves by our own thoughts. Usually we are unaware of the content of this conversation and it becomes the soundtrack of our unconscious mind. When we become aware of our mind chatter as you have, we are then able to turn down the volume and listen for our inner being and our guiding voice. I would like to suggest that when you notice your thoughts running away with themselves that you consciously pause and count to twenty. The counting will immediately interrupt the thoughts and still your mind. Then from that place ask yourself this one simple question “do these thoughts that I am having have anything to do with my life in this moment’.I suspect that your answer will be “no”. This is a very effective way to check in with yourself as you begin to differentiate between the two conversations the unconscious one that has nothing to do with your now and the conscious one which is about the many good things that are going well for you in your life right now. You may find yourself pausing and counting every other minute at first but in a very short period of time you will understand that you have the choice as to which conversation that you would like to be having with yourself; as you focus your attention upon your now and redirect yourself back to your inner being.