Help! My Mind Is Going Crazy

Mark Twain once said, "I'm an old man, and I have had many problems, most of which never happened." If you can see yourself in this statement then this teaching is for you. Suryacitta shows just how most of our problems are actually created by our own restless and negative thinking. He also shows you in practical ways how you can bring an end to mind made problems. He does this with his usual clarity and humour, and shares a technique for over thinking. There is a guided meditation.

Transcript

Hello,

Sir Richard here.

I'm going to talk a little about why we overthink,

How that happens,

But also I'm going to talk about what to do about it.

But I need your cooperation.

Let me explain.

When people come along to the retreats and courses that we run,

What a lot of people are asking implicitly is,

Look,

I can't stop thinking,

Can you help?

And the thing is,

Yes,

I can help.

But you need to engage with the teaching,

With what's said here.

So take this away and actually engage with it,

Actually do it to benefit from it.

So how often do you find yourself doing some mundane tasks,

Maybe even driving to work or walking up the stairs,

Doing your shopping?

And you find yourself lost in thought,

Having conversations with people who are not with you.

I'm laughing,

But actually sometimes it's not funny because when we get lost in thought in that way,

Anything can happen.

You might find yourself thinking about other governments,

Economic policy working.

Is it working?

And then a second later you see a jar of coffee and your mind goes to,

How did they pick the coffee in Brazil?

It's amazing.

And you're on to,

I wonder who will make a good James Bond?

And then you may get into something rather negative,

Rather troublesome,

And then you go really down the rabbit hole.

And all that just because you've been lost in thought.

Let me see if I can put it another way.

It's like we're listening to the narrative almost the whole day long.

The narrative about ourself,

Our life.

And we call that narrative,

We actually call it my life.

That's my life.

And it's a narrative about life and often a negative one about other people,

About yourself.

Do you wake up in the morning and you say to yourself,

Okay,

So let's get going.

I want to think negative thoughts most of the day.

I'm going to make most of my thoughts,

Maybe 80% negative.

I want to judge other people.

I'm going to criticize myself until I make myself miserable and I've had enough.

Do you say that to yourself in the morning?

No.

But often that's what happens,

Isn't it?

If we're honest.

We just get caught up in this negative stream of thinking,

Of thought.

And I want to show you what to do about it.

I remember once when I was on the way to work in my car,

The university,

And I started having an argument with a colleague,

We were teaching together.

And I was saying we need to take that out,

We can leave that in and make it more streamlined,

Make the teaching more elegant.

And she was saying,

No,

No,

We need more,

More,

More.

And it started to get rather heated.

And then I realized she wasn't even in the car with me.

And I was gripping onto the steering wheel,

You know,

My jaw was a bit tight.

And she wasn't on the phone either.

Where was it happening?

Yeah.

Just in my head,

In the mind.

The whole thing was just on the mind screen,

So to speak.

See,

Thoughts show up in two ways,

As words and images.

And most of the day,

We are just listening to these words,

Thoughts,

And watching these images about our life.

And so what we do,

We miss life,

We miss real life,

Which is here,

Through the senses.

That's where real life happens.

That's where the appreciation of life is.

The mind is a wonderful tool,

Don't get me wrong.

It's brilliant.

Look what it creates.

It's double edged.

It also creates suffering.

It can create art,

Poetry,

Engineering feats,

Take us to the moon,

Cures for diseases,

Beautiful music,

But also creates personal suffering.

So I want to do a little exercise with you.

I want you to close your eyes for me.

And I want you to imagine that you're going on holiday.

You haven't had a holiday for a long time.

And you're in the taxi,

In the cab,

On the way to the airport.

You're with your best friend or your family that you love,

And you're in the car.

You're all in a good mood.

Everything's going well.

And you go into your favourite place.

How wonderful is that?

Can you feel that?

Lovely.

Keep your eyes closed.

You check your bags and all your credit cards and your passport,

Your tickets.

Everybody's got that.

Ah,

Yes.

And you're looking at each other.

We'll do this and we'll have this and we'll have that.

And you're looking at each other.

And you're thinking,

Oh,

I'm going to do this.

And you're looking at each other.

Oh,

We'll do this and we'll have that.

Lovely.

Yeah.

You get to the airport.

You give the taxi driver a good tip because you're happy.

You're going on holiday.

You skip through the airport doors and off to the desk.

There's nobody at the desk.

Great.

You don't have to even wait in a queue.

And you go in business class.

You're treating yourself.

Oh,

How good is this?

You get to the desk,

You hand your tickets over.

Come on,

Come on.

Hurry up.

Then,

Above on the information board,

Above the receptionist,

Suddenly flight cancelled.

What?

What?

You look at each other.

And the receptionist sort of confirms,

Oh,

Sorry,

It's been cancelled.

There's no other flight for three days.

And then of the loud speaker,

The announcement,

Get out of the airport.

There's been a bomb scare.

Then you just scarper.

All of you just heading to the exit.

Everyone's panicking.

Open your eyes.

Look around the room.

Look around the room.

What's happening?

Nothing.

Where was all that drama taking place?

Yes,

Only in the mind.

On that mind screen,

The movie show,

The internal movie theatre.

Yeah.

The only you were privy to.

And did you notice the feelings of elation and happiness and the joy and excitement?

And then the,

Oh,

And it wasn't really happening.

Now,

This is going on most of the day,

Completely unconsciously.

Completely unconsciously.

Yeah.

And that's why it feels real.

Because you believe the thoughts.

And when you believe the thoughts,

It creates the corresponding feeling emotion.

And so a lot of our anxiety,

I'm not saying all,

You know,

A lot of our anxiety is created because we believe in the thoughts.

And I want to show you how to stop believing thoughts.

I want to show you how to begin to identify a thought rather than identifying with a thought.

There's a whole world of difference.

In Zen,

They say it's the difference between heaven and hell.

Believing a thought can be hellish.

Yeah.

Because of the content.

The thought is real.

The content isn't.

It can be useful.

Don't get me wrong.

Yeah.

Like,

You need to phone the doctors at 3pm.

Ah,

Yes.

That's a useful thought.

Fine.

Not believing a thought,

Those negative ones,

Or self-referential,

What in Zen is called self-centered thinking.

When we don't believe those,

They just pass through like clouds through the sky.

They just pass through like clouds with the sky.

And we remain present here in the senses,

In the hearing,

The seeing,

The feeling.

So I want to just briefly explain actually how that happens.

Now,

Your attention,

The ability to pay attention,

You can pay attention to the wall,

A sound,

A smell,

Sunshine,

Your body,

Another person,

You can pay attention to something.

And when we're paying attention to the five senses,

Which is seeing,

Smelling,

Tasting,

Feeling and hearing,

There's no problem.

Yeah.

That's just real life,

Just pure life,

As it were,

To give it a name.

Yeah.

We're just paying attention to life.

But what happens is,

You're paying attention,

Then a thought pops up and comes into your sphere of attention.

And then your attention collapses into that thought world.

And that becomes your world.

For the duration of the loss of attention in it.

It may be three seconds,

It may be 10 seconds,

It may be minutes.

Like when you're driving,

How did I get here?

I've come five miles.

How did that happen?

Yeah.

And so the attention is lost in that virtual reality.

And anything can happen there.

See,

If you believe those thoughts,

And if you're lost in it,

You are believing them,

You're going to experience the corresponding feeling.

So you pop back,

Oh,

And you might feel frustrated,

Angry,

Anxious,

Whatever.

Yeah,

Because you've taken that thought made world,

That virtual reality to be real.

That's the mechanism,

That's the process that happens.

And what I want you to do to start identifying a thought rather than identifying with it.

So I want you to say a negative thought to yourself,

Just quietly inside.

Make it real.

One that you will tend to have about yourself or somebody else.

It might be a criticism or an anxious thought.

You say it for 10 seconds.

Okay.

So it feels real,

Doesn't it?

Even in a sort of test condition like this,

There's a feeling of reality to it.

Now,

What I'd like you to do is to say the same thought again.

But before it,

I want you to say,

I'm having the thought dot,

Dot,

Dot.

Do it again.

Okay.

Notice the difference.

Notice the second time,

There's a distance between you and the thought,

So to speak.

I'm having the thought,

I'm no good,

For example.

Rather than just,

Rather than just,

I'm no good.

I'm having a thought,

I'm no good.

It gives you a perspective on it.

So next time you're in one of those thought loops,

You know,

Spinning,

Because we spin all day long.

We spin with this,

We spin with that.

Take that thought and say to yourself,

I'm having the thought dot,

Dot,

Dot.

Share with your friends.

It can really get you out of the rabbit hole.

And just do it each day when you need to.

It's a tool.

Okay.

We need to start getting our life back.

Living in the head,

Overthinking in the way that I'm talking about it,

Is the thief of joy.

It steals your joy right out of your hand.

Your nature is joy.

But thought,

Our belief in thought,

Just steals it,

Takes it away,

And puts a virtual one in its place,

Which is often negative.

So we're just going to end with a few minutes of meditation.

And I just want to share a way of just unhooking from those thoughts,

Unhook from them,

Come back,

Come back home.

Okay.

So you can sit with your eyes closed if you wish,

Or you can lie,

Lie down if you want to.

Hands resting in your lap.

Just sitting comfortably.

Just taking one or two deeper breaths.

And breathe naturally.

So now on each out breath,

I just want you to lengthen the out breath by a second or two.

And breathe down into the hara,

Into below the navel.

That's it.

Give your attention to the breath,

To the out breath.

Just lengthen it by a second.

And breathe down into the hara.

When you lengthen the out breath,

You take your attention away from thoughts,

Down into the body.

Being in the hara,

Below the navel,

The lower belly,

Grounds you.

Just being present.

Now,

From here,

Being present,

At some point you will find yourself lost in thought.

And when awareness comes back,

Oh,

I just want you to say to yourself,

That's a thought.

And when you're aware,

You're not thinking.

And when you're aware,

You're not thinking.

And when awareness comes back,

Oh,

I just want you to say to yourself,

That's a thought.

Then drop back down into the body and then feel the breath once more.

Just lengthen that out breath.

And again,

Notice the pull to go up into the mind movie.

The latest preoccupation.

There's nothing wrong with thinking,

It's wonderful.

But when we get lost in it,

Just notice,

Oh,

That's thought.

If there are any sounds happening,

Just allow them to be.

So this is just a way of unhooking.

When you say to yourself,

That's a thought,

You're identifying a thought,

Oh,

That's a thought.

It's not real.

The thought is real,

But the content isn't in those stories.

Unhook,

Come back.

Okay,

You can open your eyes now and sit as you wish.

So just a short moment.

So just a short meditation,

Just to show you in meditation,

How to unhook from thinking.

And the more you unhook,

The more you are here out of this virtual world.

And you learn to use the mind wisely.

I run a business,

I use it every day.

I run a business,

I use it every day.

It becomes a friend,

Becomes an essential tool.

And not an enemy,

Not the,

You know,

Doesn't keep flipping you out.

Don't take your narrative in your head to be your life,

Because it isn't.

It's not telling you the truth.

It's a storyteller.

It's what the mind is.

So remember,

I start to identify your thinking and do that in daily life too.

That's a thought.

And come back to your senses,

To the hearing,

To the breeze on the skin,

On your face and the movement of walking.

There's no need to overthink.

Eventually you'll start to let go of it all.

Thank you.

Goodbye.

Reviews

Clear, compassionate, and easy to employ. Thank you

It's refreshing to hear a talk where there's laughter about our human foibles. I feel less like "I failed again" at meditation or just plain paying attention

Very helpful, and delivered in a lighthearted friendly manner. ✔️

Wow! Ty! Exactly what I needed right now. I appreciate the techniques you shared . They seem very useful and I ask looking forward to putting them into practice

Wonderful advice for unhooking from thoughts. Thank you! 🙏

I loved sitting outside feeling a wonderful breeze and hearing this . Loved it. I also enjoy your live insight events but this felt so perfect for me today. Thank u

Love Him ❤️
Did his “Falling in Love with Presense” course. It changed my life !!!🙏🙏🙏
And I continuously go back to it btw 💕

This was a really wonderful teaching. Nothing new but an approach that was very helpful! 🙏🙏

It was very helpful breaking a cycle of mornings fighting negative debilitating thoughts

love this. I like line, the thought is real. The Content is not.
I use the phrase, observe not absorb. Saying that helps me to simply see the thoughts with no story or attachment. Without personalizing the thought. as always, thank you for your great talks here 🙏🙏🙏