Change your mind
Let's face it, we all want to control our minds in some form or another. The good news is: you can! The bad news is: it takes a lot of preliminary work.
It's a tricky business but here's a few ideas to get you started.
The first thing you need to do is establish that the thoughts in your mind are not who you are - they are product of various circumstances, they are a process of your mind. The modern way of seeing this clearly is mindfulness. You can do it now - observe your internal dialog, watch it change and repeat itself, watch it wander off, etc. You may have noticed that there were your thoughts (which may or may not have been useful) and there was the wider observation of those thoughts. Perhaps you noticed that this observer was not affected by the thoughts, that it was behind experience, that it has been there all your life. Let's not get into the existential nature of this aspect of your life - just acknowledge that you have one.
To summarise then, establish the observer. This is very useful indeed. Having a shit day - go into observer mode. Feeling depressed - go into observer mode. Feeling euphoric - go into observer mode. You get the idea.
Now let's use Buddhist theory to break things up a little bit. We are all built the same way - we have bodies, we experience pleasant/unpleasant sensations, we have mind states, and we have various mental functions like thoughts and so on. Let's focus on the state of our minds. The first thing we should realise is that it is basically invisible - the mind that is happy will not be thinking that it is happy, it will just be happy. However (this is the long winded bit), if we use mindfulness to observe our state of mind over a period of time we begin to recognise times when it is happy, times when it is sad, times when it is angry, times when it is euphoric - we recognise the difference through the contrasts in the mental states.
Here's the important point, become familiar with your moods and feelings and label them appropriately.
The final stage is learning what conditions your moods (because they are conditioned). Now, the interesting thing about moods is that they can change in an instant (and you'll know that because you'll have been watching them). Here's the other interesting thing: people have the most influence over your moods. So a shitty person can make you feel bad instantly, but you probably knew that already. Conversely a delightful person can you feel good just as quickly (even when things are crappy). So, choose your friends carefully.
This post is getting a bit long so I'll just list off some other mood modifying tips:
- music is highly conditioning
- the way you speak is very important
- the way you act is also pretty significant
- what you read and watch is important
- what you do matters
- what you eat makes a difference
Clearly, now we have a choice. We begin to see how are moods are shaped and then we realise we can do things to shape them.
It's a tricky business but here's a few ideas to get you started.
The first thing you need to do is establish that the thoughts in your mind are not who you are - they are product of various circumstances, they are a process of your mind. The modern way of seeing this clearly is mindfulness. You can do it now - observe your internal dialog, watch it change and repeat itself, watch it wander off, etc. You may have noticed that there were your thoughts (which may or may not have been useful) and there was the wider observation of those thoughts. Perhaps you noticed that this observer was not affected by the thoughts, that it was behind experience, that it has been there all your life. Let's not get into the existential nature of this aspect of your life - just acknowledge that you have one.
To summarise then, establish the observer. This is very useful indeed. Having a shit day - go into observer mode. Feeling depressed - go into observer mode. Feeling euphoric - go into observer mode. You get the idea.
Now let's use Buddhist theory to break things up a little bit. We are all built the same way - we have bodies, we experience pleasant/unpleasant sensations, we have mind states, and we have various mental functions like thoughts and so on. Let's focus on the state of our minds. The first thing we should realise is that it is basically invisible - the mind that is happy will not be thinking that it is happy, it will just be happy. However (this is the long winded bit), if we use mindfulness to observe our state of mind over a period of time we begin to recognise times when it is happy, times when it is sad, times when it is angry, times when it is euphoric - we recognise the difference through the contrasts in the mental states.
Here's the important point, become familiar with your moods and feelings and label them appropriately.
The final stage is learning what conditions your moods (because they are conditioned). Now, the interesting thing about moods is that they can change in an instant (and you'll know that because you'll have been watching them). Here's the other interesting thing: people have the most influence over your moods. So a shitty person can make you feel bad instantly, but you probably knew that already. Conversely a delightful person can you feel good just as quickly (even when things are crappy). So, choose your friends carefully.
This post is getting a bit long so I'll just list off some other mood modifying tips:
- music is highly conditioning
- the way you speak is very important
- the way you act is also pretty significant
- what you read and watch is important
- what you do matters
- what you eat makes a difference
Clearly, now we have a choice. We begin to see how are moods are shaped and then we realise we can do things to shape them.
Comments