How many times do you find yourself stuck in analyzing, overthinking, thinking about your thinking (metathinking), judging, or even fantasizing just hoping you could find a way to stop it all?
You shift your focus, you go for a run, you watch something, talk to a friend and so on, only to be pulled back into that spin of the mind a few moments later?
Sound familiar?
For most of us, the mind seems to be ‘who we are’ or ‘what we are,’ but in reality, the mind is really nothing more than a filter that gives us thoughts based on what we are focused on in any given moment.
We have all experienced this when watching a scary movie and then going home or going to bed wondering why we have bad dreams or random fears show up as we try to relax for the night.
Thoughts, mentations, memories, are nothing more than forms that register in our mind based on what energetic state we are resonating at, and this leads to us creating the reality that we see in the moment and on a bigger scale over time.
In the case of the scary movie, random thoughts will pop up many times during and after as these movies illicit feelings of fear and danger.
Why am I afraid?
What if someone breaks into my house?
What if I have a nightmare?
Did I lock the door?
All this feeds the emotional response sparked by the movie itself and the experience of watching it (focus) and until we shift this focus, these fears will keep trying to dominate our thinking.
This is just a small example but shows how this focus works. However, when it comes to our more complex, deeper mental patterns does this still work to stop these cycles? Or, better yet, how do we shift out of this constant focus on thinking or even emotional responses?
Well…trying to stop thinking is one way…but for most this is brings about frustration and something that seems impossible as when do try to go there, the mind seems to throw even more at us!
When we are stuck in the thinkingness of the mind, change is challenging as asking questions and ruminating about them will only lead to greater levels of analyzing, overthinking, and yes judgment about what we are doing or what others are doing….
It is a fixation on form and the endless stream of those forms brought about by our focus on the mind and mentation that keeps us stuck in the mind. A fixation or fascination with thinking.
Our focus giving us back what we are focused on, remember that…
What if we moved past the forms and the thoughts themselves and just for a moment realized that the mind does what it does without us really doing anything. It spits out or takes in all kinds of info and then boom thoughts based on ‘where we are at’ begin to permeate our energy and space.
It brings up or latches onto ideas, patterns, conclusions all based on the info in front of us…but is that really us?
This last question is a big one and has been discussed for ages, so just for the moment let’s just accept that the mind isn’t all of us and what is past this is our awareness or consciousness (or Divine Wifi as Jona recently mentioned on a brief video - click here to watch)
This is what registers the thoughts we have and has the ability to allow us to respond or react to what is coming in… For most this occurs so fast (reactive, ego-based responses) that we don’t realize the gap there. It seems automatic and for most makes its more difficult to see the separation.
However, to someone who works on being present, being real/truth…this gap can become quite evident, quite quickly.
