Hello everyone,
This is Asma speaking and I wanted to come on here to talk about something that really helped me manage my thoughts and the chaos in my head.
And that is a new concept that I've got to learn about in one of Johan Hari's books.
The name of the book is Stolen Focus by Johan Hari.
I highly recommend that you go and read through this book,
It's absolutely amazing.
So one of the things that was mentioned for an ultimate focus of the human mind is that we used to be scattered,
Attention scattered because we are not rested and social media,
Maybe traumas and other things,
A lot of things have been mentioned in that book and making a session here just to speak about it in a very surface-like way won't give it its credit and I'm aware of that.
But today I wanted to just mention one idea that was mentioned in the book that was actually revolutionary for me and when I first read about it I thought to myself,
This is genius.
The findings of the research attached and the relationship between mind walks and cognitive performance were thoroughly amazing and match in my experience as well.
Now let me explain,
If you don't know what a brain walk is,
It's basically what it sounds like.
It's an exercise,
A movement,
A stroll or a wander of the mind.
So you let your mind go on a walk.
So you leave the house as you do and you can go on a physical walk and let your mind wander.
Do not try to control where it goes,
Just watch it with equanimity where it goes,
Let it regurgitate on whatever happened that day,
Whatever it wants to process,
You just let it do its own thing.
It's kind of random,
Right?
And you can do this at the end of the day,
After work,
Winding down.
I think this is a great tool that we can use because what it does is it allows your brain to walk and to go on a walk like it's to detox it.
It wanders,
The mind will repeat scenarios that happen during the day and this will create space for your brain to refresh the energy,
To close and deal with unfinished business,
With unfinished stories,
Process and tackle feelings,
Maybe something bothered you during the day.
Individuals who go on regular brain walks tend to have more focus during their day and more resilience and higher cognitive function.
This is all because they allowed the mental clatter to be processed and their brains get the chance to solve problems during the walks.
And I noticed that honestly whenever I went on a walk,
My brain just goes on a walk itself and it processes things,
It comes out with ideas,
It revisits past events by past events,
I mean like past past.
I could go back to childhood memories,
I could go back to things,
I never thought,
I could see a color and just remember something and I wouldn't say to my brain,
Oh no,
Be present,
Don't go there.
If I just allow that,
It makes me flow,
It's like a flow state.
So when I walk through the streets or in the park,
I just feel like my mind goes these different worlds and I for the first time don't judge it,
I don't tell it to shut up as I do when I want for example to sit for meditation because it depends on the type of meditation you're doing,
Right?
So this is also a meditation for your brain,
You just don't control anything and you allow it.
I think the biggest deal of practice we're doing when we're walking our minds is that we are practicing compassion,
A lot of compassion with ourselves.
And the reason for that is because when you are walking and your brain goes to these different spaces,
It might go to a space that is not particularly a space where you want to linger for so long.
It might go to the route of worrying,
It might go to the route of catastrophizing or whatever but that will only allow you to see a pattern and to notice where the brain goes and ultimately leads to self-mastery.
There I go,
I certainly have an issue here and I don't know why this type of pattern in my ideas is repeating itself.
So this is an opportunity for me to dig a little bit to see where that might arise from and it helped me big time really.
And the thing about these walks is that they could even lead to solving problems and I mean when you go on a walk and you have a problem during your day or something,
I usually go for a walk or like a run and when I am doing that physical activity and just letting my brain do its thing,
I feel like I come home with a solved something,
A solved equation of some sort.
Also like I heard that Einstein used to do this thing himself,
He would stop whatever he was doing and he would go just away from the equations and then when he would get back,
It's like he had solved it and sometimes he would go on naps as well.
He would take a nap until he heard the two pebbles fall on the tray of whatever,
Of silver he was laying right under his hand so whenever he started to drift a little bit,
He would release the pebbles and then they would make noise and then he would wake up.
And that's how he resolved so many issues and his psyche just starts wiring information and I think this type of walks as well wires information in a different type of way.
It's not like a nap where you rest your mind but this is mostly like an exercise,
It's like a chance for your mind to de-stress.
You see,
When you go for a run and you feel overwhelmed and you go for a run,
Your body is literally thriving,
It's like putting that energy to another space,
To exercising,
To doing something,
To holding you accountable and making you stronger,
Right?
So I feel like this brainwalk is so important and what Johan Hari puts in his book,
He says I don't think our full conscious control of our thoughts is necessarily our most productive way of thinking.
I think loose patterns of association can lead to unique insights.
And the thing is,
In these walks you don't direct the thought pattern of your mind,
It just does what it does,
You know,
By default.
So you get to,
First of all,
Be an observer of what keeps repeating itself in your psyche and that is a great potential in both negative and positive aspects.
We simply just see things as they are and we hold our compassion,
Accommodate both good and bad in whatever way they seem to us,
Like these ideas,
They could be worries,
They could be anxious thoughts and when we just notice them and compassionately accept them and finish our walk without judging,
Then we are doing a great deal of the work.
This is a great meditation by the way,
Just accepting whatever is like the best thing I was introduced to and it changed my perspective as well because I got this small,
You know,
Walk in which I can just listen to my mind,
What thoughts is it telling me and why.
I don't have to figure out why right now,
Now I'm in my walk but maybe when I'm journaling the next morning or so,
When I'm journaling I could write about it that I've noticed that these thoughts are just rewiring and I don't know,
Maybe this is a topic that I should investigate anymore and that is self-mastery.
When we allow that space for the mind to surely express itself,
We are thus detoxing and processing,
In other words regurgitating all the thoughts that have been lingering in our psyche.
So what if we actually did this every day,
What if we allowed for our chaos to be discovered in these walks like a meditation with no rules,
What if we accepted that complex randomness about ourselves.
I think there's a great deal of work here and I believe that we should give it all a try.
I hope you've enjoyed this talk and if anything comment or tell me what your insight is about this.
Thank you for listening.
