Clearing a Busy Mind
Do you find yourself wondering about the future or spending a lot of time considering the past? How often do you get to simply enjoy now?
Life seems so busy now that it is difficult to actually 'be' in the now. Our logical brains get into overdrive about planning and strategies or worries and fears. Our mind's are going so fast that they fail to see what is going on right now.
Our mind on average has 60,000 separate thoughts each and every day - most of these unconscious. It might not be an issue but we have the same 60,000 thoughts each day - yesterday, today and tomorrow.
We are not those thoughts but often think we are. We become enslaved to the decisions we have accumulated that remain mostly unconscious and don't make time to open to what other gifts life might be trying to present to us.
With most people running on automatic pilot, the deeper inner realm of spirit, the 'Real' is lost to us. With our collective minds at war with conflict and clutter, the outside world comes to reflect what is within us.
How often do you laugh? When we are children we laugh around 400 times a day, but by the time we are adult, it is closer to 15.
Around some 5,000 years ago Tibetan monks used laughter to help them to clear their busy minds so that they might sit quietly in their meditation practise. In our busy lifestyles it is sometimes difficult to make the decision to stop and to simply go within. The mind is in overdrive and we are driven along by it.
" Ego strives but never arrives"
Ram Dass* suggests that our ego is merely an accumulation of decisions we have made about the world. Since birth we made many decisions and our present consciousness exists as the accumulation of those decisions. The question becomes then, how to free ourselves from the limitations of the myriad of thoughts that are generated each and every day within our minds? How do we find a way into the 'real' world of spirit, the place of peace?
Professor Ekman, Professor of Psychology from the University of California suggests:
"By training your mind to move towards humour, it becomes more available to you in times of stress. All it takes is practice, as any repetitive activity creates new neural pathways in the brain."
Laughter creates endorphins as well as balances the hemispheres of the brain. The endorphins create a sense of wellbeing and the balancing of the hemispheres allows us to "see" more clearly again. When the logical brain isn't driving the show or indeed convinced that it is the whole show, then we have an opportunity to experience inner peace. When we live in the present moment, we become more able to connect with how we truly feel, receive insights or be inspired about what to do next. If we can take the time out and to allow ourselves to laugh or sing or smile or go within, it is there that we might, once again, connect with and indeed be, healthy and whole.
© Greg Govinda 2007
Sometimes your joy
is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile
can be the source of your joy.
Thich Nhat Hanh
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