I really mean NOW. This very day, this very hour, in this moment, what is occupying your thoughts? What is that one thing your mind keeps coming back to? As you drift away from the work in front of you, from the boring conversation you’re in, what do you keep thinking about?
Is it something keeping you awake at night? Is it stressful? Is it something really important to you, or it is something you wish you could forget or just let go? Does it fit with your agenda, or have you let your thought life be stolen from you? How did the thought get there? Did you invite it in? Did you let it in?
Now that it’s there, how are you treating it? Are you letting it have its way? Do you like the way it makes you feel? Can you step out of the thought and see it from the outside? Can you see how it fits in your life and in your mind? Can you look at it objectively, without feeling and observe what it is doing for you (or to you)?
We don’t often stop to think about what we’re thinking about. We manage our time, our schedule, our appearance, but we don’t manage our mind. Our mind is where we have the most opportunity to increase our freedom. Free your mind and the rest will follow.
It isn’t easy. It takes time. Training your mind is not unlike training your body. If you want results, you have to be intentional. You have to exercise. You have to be aware of your strengths and your weaknesses so you can leverage the good and shore up the bad. You have to know yourself. To think about what you’re thinking about. To think about how you think. About how you react to stimuli. About how your state of mind changes your perception of things – are you weaker when you’re tired or hungry, are you sharper in the morning or evening, are you better after a nap or a workout?
Let’s just focus on awareness now:
1) Think about that one thought or topic that has been foremost on your mind today. It may be a big thing or a small thing, it doesn’t matter what it is. Separate your conscious mind from the thing. Observe its characteristics and how it fits into your thought life. How does it make you feel? Does it always have the same effect on you, or does it “depend.” What does its affect depend on?
2) Resolve to own the thought rather than letting it own you. Do not let it have free reign, free access and control over your thought life. You are more than it. You lived and thought before it arrived and will do so long after it is gone. Decide what to do with it. Will you take some action to make it go away? Will you solve the problem? Will you just let it go? Will you talk to someone to help you process it? Do something to own it.
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