A Simple Solution For A Busy Mind

Hi.

Have you ever noticed that when your mind is really,

Really busy,

When your thoughts are swirling,

When you're feeling overwhelmed or stressed or anxious,

That decision-making becomes complicated and tricky and hard.

And the more we try to think of a solution,

The more we try to think our way out of thinking,

The less it seems to work for us.

And the more confused and overwhelmed and stressed we might end up feeling.

It's a little bit like this snow globe here.

When it's shaken up,

It's really hard to know what's going on inside it.

That's like our mind when it's swirling with thoughts.

And sometimes it's like,

Metaphorically speaking,

We try to shake our minds into submission somehow.

Like if I keep shaking and trying to figure it out,

I'm going to make it better.

Instead of what we intuitively know makes more sense with a snow globe,

Which is to let it settle.

And when we let it settle,

We can see that there's so much more clarity available to us.

Like now the snow globe has settled,

I can see that there are some trees and a church,

And the church has some little steps leading up to the main entrance.

So from here,

There are possibilities.

If I were a teeny-weeny person inside this snow scene,

I could choose to go for a walk around the grounds.

I could choose to go up those little steps and through the main entrance and into the church itself.

There are things I can do,

There are options available,

Which are not at all clear to me when it's all shaken up.

So there's nothing I had to do to make it settle,

I just had to stop shaking it.

And you might have been told at one point or another that it's really helpful to let go of your thinking when your mind is sped up.

But that's such an abstract idea isn't it?

How do we let go of our thinking?

Like we can see how to put a snow globe down,

You just take your hands off it.

How do we do that with our thinking?

And that's when it helps to have something practical that will actually make a difference.

And what I found works really well is to bring our awareness out of our thinking and to focus on our breath.

And make those breaths deep into the belly.

And the steadiness of the breath into our belly and out gives us something else to focus on.

So rather than focusing on not thinking our thoughts,

Which is still thinking thoughts right?

It's similar to saying don't focus on a purple hippo in a green tutu chewing gum and blowing bubbles.

As soon as we say those things,

The mind has to create them in order to not think about them.

When we say stop thinking about something,

Our attention is on the thinking.

And so we end up in this loop.

So instead if we bring our awareness onto something else,

And you might know this with little children,

If they're struggling,

We go,

Look at that!

And the distraction gives their brain something else to focus on.

We can use that with our own breath.

We bring our attention to our own breath,

Which is always available.

We can never leave our breath at home right?

We always have access to our breath.

And even knowing that can be really stabilizing.

To know that the next time the mind gets swirly and overwhelmed,

Feels like it's about to take over,

We can bring our awareness back to the breath.

And when we do that,

There's nothing we need to do to make the mind settle.

The mind will settle all by itself.

And we don't need to make a decision or figure anything else out until it has settled.

So that in itself gives us a bit of relief,

And we have an opportunity to slow everything down,

Like the snow globe,

And let the mind settle.