Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Getting Rid of Unwanted Thoughts

Our minds are constantly thinking.  In my meditation training, this never ending flow of thoughts was called the monkey mind.  The mind sometimes behaves like a monkey, jumping from one thought to another and has a hard time settling down.  Some of our thoughts are happy and productive, and we like those thoughts.  Sometimes our mind is thinking things that are negative and make us depressed or angry.  Don't get me wrong, there are things in life that are difficult and need to be worked through.  It is important to respect our emotions and thoughts, so they become processed and teach us something.  We may even be moved to necessary action.  However, when the negative thoughts ruminate and take over our mind to the point that there is no benefit, the thoughts need a little managing.

The heart based mediation technique that I learned and practice daily helps with this greatly.  I am very grateful for my meditation practice and highly recommend it.  Meditation is one of the pillars of health in Ayurveda.  Yet, not everyone is into meditation or has not had the gift of learning it.  Even if you do meditate, sometimes a thought can overstay its welcome and meditating is not available at that moment.  There is a really easy technique that you can do that is scientifically proven to lessen the grip of the negative thought.  Simply write the negative thought or belief on a piece of paper, tear up the paper and throw it in the garbage.  It does not get any easier than that. 

Using techniques in the moment offers a shift of the energy.  It helps you turn things around.  The negative thought may come back after awhile or you may get triggered again, but it does not matter.  You need to repeat the technique and move your mind elsewhere.  We take a shower to get clean, but inevitably we are dirty the next day.  So, we take another shower.  Our mind and mental state deserve a little persistence.  We persevere in things that are a lot less important. 

Stay healthy & well,
Lisa

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