Monkey Mind
By Caron Proctor
Most of us are busy being distracted throughout the day, we jump around from text messaging to Facebook, Youtube, Tiktok, Snapchat, Instagram countless times a day.
Most of us live the same day over and over mindlessly, yet feel a pull towards a fully awakened life.
We go from emails, Zoom meetings, webinars to the news not realising the messiness this causes.
I’m guilty of a large bunch of open tabs, unfinished conversations, and jumping to even more research black holes, I’m an information and connection junkie!
So there’s no wonder I often feel the creep of tension on my shoulders and chest that activates poor breathing habits and so overwhelm, and anxiety is recreated. By me! Even writing this, I catch myself holding my jaw stiff, so I will pause.
What I would love to feel is calm, focus and the joyful purpose in helping others who may feel similar to me.
The Buddhist term “monkey mind’ is a way of illustrating our untamed thoughts.
Imagine your thoughts, swinging from branch to branch, jumping around noisily and attention-seeking without pause, making a mess everywhere.
The term “monkey mind” captures this fairly well.
This is actually how our untamed minds are much of the time, and it becomes a cocktail of stress hormones, resulting in dis-ease and disease.
Let’s walk a new path today.
Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, just imagine your thoughts as cute but needy monkeys leaping around, making a fuss about everything, like a wild 2-year-old ape let loose.
When you use images, your mind will be able to understand your direction more.
The next step to learning how to feel calmer and happier is to learn and accept that you too have a monkey mind, that it’s untamed, that it’s wild and loves gossip, judgment, and drama.
Next, sit still for 10 mins and hear the thought monkeys without adding any conscious judgement, just listen, watch them and smile.
This is the first and vital stage to cultivating your own peace and happiness.
Imagine feeling calm, peaceful, joyful, and confident…you can feel that.
It starts here with a daily practice of stilling your mind and being a silent witness to the jungle in your mind.
Start here, start now, it’s such a simple way to transcend the noise and clutter.
Just doing this is a big step forward, more to come next week...
As always I would love your comments, feedback, and ideas, your contribution matters.
Love Love Caron xx