Does your busy mind need an off button? Is it running and ruining your life? Would you like to quiet your mind, overcome troubling thoughts, and regain authority over the noisy mind chatter? When the mind runs amok, it distracts us from experiencing joy found beyond the noise of the mind. Did you know that thoughts cause our suffering and it’s unnecessary? It’s also not good for our well-being. 

Studies have shown that the dialogue we have with ourselves can significantly affect our health, e.g., blood pressure, heart, and tissues in the body. In fact, research tells us we have an estimated sixty to eighty thousand thoughts a day. Out of those thoughts, approximately 80% are negative and 98% are random, repetitive, and unproductive. 

Putting our thoughts into perspective can be helpful. So, consider for a moment how many thoughts you have in a 5-minute span of time? What about in an hour or in a day? How much time is spent away from your life, living in your mind, in what isn’t happening? Most of us are preoccupied with past and future thoughts, the maybe’s, and what if’s, i.e., the mind chatter, voice in our head, ruminations, incessant stream of thinking, committee of opinions, the cycling upset from our head to our heart and into our body…only to repeat itself over and over again. It’s exhausting.   

Have you ever stopped to listen to the narrative going on in your head? If so, do any of these thought patterns sound familiar? 

I’ll never be good enough, I always fail, Why am I so stressed today, I look terrible, What do they think about me, I know they hate me, I should’ve picked up the milk this morning, I’m so stupid…On and on it goes, day in and day out. Right? This is how we’re bullied, and we put up with it. Yet, it’s a habit we can change.

So, how much importance or power do you give your thoughts? As previously stated, most of our thoughts are negative, repetitive, and random. What’s worse is we get attached and often identify with them as if they’re a real threat. This creates unnecessary stress, pain, and suffering. Did you know your thoughts are reflected in your emotions and then into your physical body? It’s true. And our body doesn’t know that the thoughts in our head aren’t real. Have you considered the costs of being in your head rather than being here in the present moment, e.g., in joy, health, peace of mind, and more?

Applying what we know for change…

Would you like an off button for your thoughts? Let’s answer these questions:

• Do your thoughts have power over you or are you in charge?
• Are you trapped in self-talk that keeps you stuck in negativity, judgment, comparison, or rejection?
• Do you feel afraid, worried, stressed, or out-of-control?
• Are your thoughts creating unnecessary suffering in your life? Maybe running and ruining it?

Start by asking yourself these 4 clarifying questions whenever you’re challenged. They will help you grow self-awareness by observing your thoughts. As you spend more time in the present moment, the busy mind will slowly lessen. Just try it for 21 days and see what happens. Practice and repetition are necessary to overcome our habit of allowing the ego mind to take us over.  

1. What am I thinking?
2. What am I feeling?
3. What do I need?
4. How can I get it in a healthy way?…Then do it.

Taking “authority” over your thoughts is essential to living a happy, fulfilled life.

Remember, your thoughts only hold the power you choose to give them. You are supposed to be in charge, not your thoughts; so, choose wisely. Being selective on when and how you use your mind is essential to your well-being. Yes, you can transcend thoughts by practicing living in presence, i.e., the state of being beyond the busy mind and thoughts. 

Once you start observing your thoughts, the awareness you bring to it will slowly dissolve the time you spend in thought. So, it is possible to be in charge of your mind and its ongoing chatter. Yes, you can have good inner boundaries with your thoughts and only think when you want to think. Learning how to quiet the noise in our busy mind involves understanding how to live in the present moment. Redirecting our attention here now is key.

Key Practices…

Breaking Free Boundaries’ Key Practices can help you build self-awareness and a life of inner peace that’s found in the present moment. As you apply the practices, you will become more familiar with your 3 boundary resource areas and how they behave, i.e., mental, emotional and physical areas. Healthy boundaries are vital to personal growth and breaking free.

Through the practices such as meditation, body awareness, and breath work, you can learn to spend more time living and experiencing the present moment. As you go between thought and presence, you will become more familiar with what’s going on. You can watch the noise come and go rather than identifying with it.

“Meditation applies the brakes to the mind.” ~ Ramana Maharshi

As you practice observing, you will be able to come back more easily from thought to what’s happening now. Every time you catch yourself going into psychological thought, you learn what it feels like to be away from what’s here now…the presence. This is how we develop our “off button” with authority.

For example, you can move your attention to your body, the 5 senses, your breath, and things such as nature. This is how we stay with what is happening verses focusing our attention on what is not happening, i.e., living a psychological life in the mind.

The goal is to become more self-aware, so as you observe your thoughts the gap widens between thoughts. As you continue to practice, the mind slows down and quiets as the gap between thoughts expands. Hence, you are retraining and reclaiming your authority with greater awareness and practice.

Simple steps toward contentment

Try this next time you have a negative thought, conflict, or event occur:

• Don’t resist, interpret, judge, defend, or react to it. If you do, it will only take you back into thought or in your head again.
• Allow it to be what it is by shifting judgment to observing.
• You may not like what happened nor condone it, but you can still accept reality. Yes, you can accept that it’s here.
• Hence, skip the negative part of resisting a thought or situation, so you can teach yourself to allow what is.
• It is, what it is; so, if there’s something you need to do, you can simply take care of it without suffering the negativity.

Remember, it’s not the situation that’s the problem. Instead, it’s our thoughts about the situation that create upset. So, don’t get discouraged. I’ve been there too, and I can attest that it is possible to quiet the busy mind. It just takes practice going beyond the habit of living a psychological life in thought. 

Be patient with yourself as you grow and proud of how far you’ve come. It takes great courage to do this inner work. Please return here for my next blog and consider sharing this blog with someone else. It may be exactly what they needed to hear.

For more insight consider reading Chapter 8, Understanding Thought and Chapter 9, The Busy Mind in my book…“Breaking Free from the Ego: A Course in Finding and Freeing Yourself”.  https://amzn.to/3mC7vO9.  My book is available on most online retail sites such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or BookBaby Bookshop.

Consider my new online course to “Find and Free Yourself”:   https://breakingfreeboundaries.com/courses/

Online Course Overview: The key to end suffering and unhappiness is to break free from the busy mind. This course focuses on how you can gain authority over your life by learning how to quiet your mind. You will learn how to recognize, neutralize, and move beyond the voice of fear and doubt. The purpose here is to teach you how to live in freedom and inner peace all the time.

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About the Author – Trina Carroll-Houk is a spiritual teacher, counselor, and founder of Breaking Free Boundaries, LLC who specializes in self-awareness, mindfulness, and the spiritual dimension of being. Her goal is to help people improve their quality of life so they can experience inner peace, meaningful purpose, and greater fulfillment. Trina represents a movement focused on helping people release what limits them from living in a higher dimension of spiritual consciousness and inner peace.

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