What’s the Point?
Are there any real benefits to self-exploration, when all we really want to do is get on with creating the goal we have in mind? I’ve often wondered if the understanding I share and write about helps other people in the way it’s helped me.
Is that a sign of mental weakness, imposter syndrome, or some sort of self-imposed pressure to point people towards their own wellbeing in a way that resonates and impacts as cleanly and as clearly as possible? Or is it more symptoms of a busy mind?
My transformation from a chronic overthinker to someone that is somewhat more relaxed, has been slow and steady. Sometimes nothing seems to happen, then I look back and everything is different. A lot of small and the occasional larger insight into the nature of my own psychology that have stripped away years of conditioned thinking.
This has resulted in a naturally quieter mind, more capable of dealing with the challenges that life throws at me.
I was the guy who used to walk around with a scowl on my face, not because I was angry with anyone. Simply, I was so wrapped up in my own negative thinking, that looked real to me, that I barely took time to look up and question whether life could be any different.
This self-imposed prison of my own thinking created the impression of a world devoid a positivity, limited and I didn’t know it could be any different.
I was having a conversation last week, and I made the simple statement, ‘it only takes you to change a single thought, and change your entire life, and not many people truly know that’.
I’m writing this as the fallout from the COVID-19 disease ramps up, and the fear and nervousness generated by the constant news cycle is taking hold and affecting the people I care about. I can see it in their faces and the way they talk. And while I have concerns about the outcomes, I feel more capable of dealing with challenges as they arise, rather than getting caught in thinking up a million scenarios of what could go wrong and using up all my mental bandwidth with fearful thinking.
And the best thing about it all, this level of clarity and resilience is available to anyone. It’s inbuilt and just needs to be brought to the surface through the power of realisation and a quietening of the mind.
So how do you get from a place of permanent frustration, fear and doubt to a world of opportunity. One where the voice in your own head isn’t trying to cut you down and have you cowering in the corner at every opportunity so that you can take advantage of the abundant opportunities the world has to offer?
Searching for Silence
Sydney Banks Quote ~ “You can almost say to you, ‘hear the silence’, and that’s what you’re searching for, you’re searching for silence. Everybody in the Universe searches for silence”
What’s the point? What does a quieter mind give me, or anyone else for that matter?
From my point of view, as my mind has become quieter three things have happened.
More time and space in my life. I’m less reactive to the random thoughts that seem to appear from seemingly nowhere. While the self-talk in my head still seems familiar, I’m less tied to the stories it tells me.
I’m more open and accepting of events that would be considered ‘bad’ or ‘unfortunate’ and find it easier to bounce back and respond. This resilience has served me well when it comes to breaking habits where the uneasiness of change has the potential to force me back into the comfort of less than effective behaviours.
And lastly, I’ve started to notice the difference in the quality of my thinking. When my mind seems closed off and heavy and it looks like I’ll fail at everything I touch, I’ve realised is nothing more than a signal that I’ve got stuck in my own head and that I’ve fallen out of the flow of life.
I’ve seen some of the fears and insecurities that I thought were holding me back for what they are. Thought forms that look real. In the past I’d tried, and in most cases failed to make any progress with techniques like hypnosis, NLP and just plain old ‘fake it till you make it’ to deliver confidence, to try and overcome fear so that I could do the things I need to do without feeling bad about myself if things didn’t go as I’d pictured. The irony as I now see, is that fear is thought, my own thought at that. Essentially, I was scaring myself and then trying to protect myself from myself.
I’m also more likely to be clear on the things I want to spend my time pursuing, rather than compromising based on self-doubt. Every possibility is on the table, and no matter how big or small, given enough attention, time and creative energy anything is achievable. This is contrary to most goal setting methodologies where ‘Realistic’ is part of the criteria. Who says what is realistic and what is not? That sounds like a personal projection to me.
I’ve come to see that life isn’t a game of trying to change the world to cushion the edges to protect my feelings, but rather, understanding that the world out there is a projection of how I see it leaves me better positioned to navigate and respond to what is placed in front of me.
It seems the world ‘out there’ is constantly barraging us with the message that you’ll only be happy when you have this [thing] or buy this [trinket] or crush this [goal], leading to the creation of a long shopping list of things to buy and goals to achieve, and a feeling that ‘I’ll have to keep working hard, and I won’t be able to feel [satisfied], [happy], [secure], [at peace] until I get it’. And what happens once you get it, if you ever do? At best, a short term feeling of satisfaction followed by a return to normal, then resuming the search for the next thing that will ‘finally get you there’.
And so, the cycle continues.
No wonder mental health is such an issue these days, with all manner of media screaming at us what we need to do and have, just to be happy and successful. The right job, so you can have the right house in the right street with the right car parked out the front just to feel happy. I too have been drawn into that game, now it just seems absurd.
The idea that anything outside you can give you anything but fleeting happiness is the biggest lie of modern times.
Guiding You Back to Sanity
Piercing the perceptual lie we’ve brought into has given me a level of mental freedom that I never knew I could experience in my 20’s and 30’s, and even into my 40’s. I thought like most people I know, I had to get on board, grind, and whatever I managed to make happen was all up to me. I’m not saying I don’t have to work; this article hasn’t written itself. However, there is a way of creating that doesn’t involve having to try and smash through self-created friction.
Rather than laying claim to being blessed with a super intellect, I was fortunate enough to have someone point out to me what is now obvious. Thought and thinking is everything. It enables, it disables, and it drives our experience of life. And if you step back and in a moment of pure quiet you might just see it for what it is, the creator of everything.
With all that said, I’m not some sort of Guru or Mystic, having returned from quest to uncover the secrets to life. I prefer to think of myself as a fellow traveller, further down the path than some, and not as far as others. All I do is try to guide people back to home base where sanity and freedom from suffering reside, to their own source of creativity and resilience. Back before the thought that there was something they had to have or there was somewhere they needed to get to be fine and have a good life.
I’m in no ways perfect. And for the most part I’ve focused letting go of the need for perfection, I still get frustrated when things don’t turn out ‘as pictured’, especially when I’m cooking. Although now being aware of the habit, I’ve noticed that sometimes when frustration arises, I see it happening, which gives me a choice, get caught up in the emotion of my thinking, or pause and let it go. I’m running at about 50/50 at this stage!
The feeling tied to an emotion is only letting me know one thing. Either I’m caught up in my thinking and feeling like crap, or I’m not. Neither one is right or wrong, although it would be fair to say, I never really make the best decisions when I’m closed off and thinking small.
I’ve seen it written that you need courage to begin to look inwards. I’m not sure if it’s courage, or just at some point you realise that the world ‘out there’ wasn’t going to deliver on the promises that glitzy advertising tells us. It’s a hard pill to swallow to realise there is no long-term happiness to be found in the big house, the flashy car, or the relationship.
I feel like I can share endlessly on this topic. Peace of mind is something that we all cherish, and it turns out that freedom from your own thinking leads you there. Unfortunately, this is not obvious until you see it for yourself, but once seen can’t be unseen, only temporarily forgotten.
