The mind can get incredibly noisy at times, and it can also go totally silent at times. You can’t ever know when your mind decides to become noisy, just like you can’t know when a baby decides to cry and wail. Once you realize that no human being has ever succeeded in “stopping” the mind from being noisy, because the mind is not really in our “total” control, just like your heart beat is not in your control, you let go of the attempt to want to silence your mind. Just like it’s not possible for you to ensure that a baby never cries, it’s never possible to ensure that mind does not become noisy. It’s possible for the mind to be silent for hours, may be days, and suddenly become really noisy for a whole morning or night. So don’t get surprised the mind that you calmed through meditation suddenly decides to become noisy. The question is not how to stop mind noise (it’s not possible), the question is how to be free of identifying with it.
“Allowing” is the best way to silence the mind – Anything you allow fully loses its power over you and ebbs away in its influence. As long as you resist something, you will be shackled to it. When your mind becomes noisy, allow it the freedom to be as noisy as it wants to be.
The mind can suddenly come up with negative stories, judgments, fearful projections, scary images, doom based thoughts etc and when it does so, you might try to resist it or shut it up, only to find that resisting the noise only seems to make things worse in that the mind becomes even more noisy. The best thing to do when the mind is noisy, is to become totally open to it and allow it’s noise to blare out in full volume, until it gets exhausted and becomes silent on its own.
Don’t try to “force” think positive thoughts – It’s not possible to consciously think positive thoughts when the mind turns on a strong momentum of negative thinking. You will only end up feeling miserable about not being able to control the mind. Freedom arises when you realize that the mind has not control over you, in that the mind can be as noisy as it wants to be but without your interest or attention it cannot sustain its noise for long.
Mind noise cannot sustain without your interest – You can notice that no matter how noisy the mind is, it cannot sustain its noise for more than a few minutes if you don’t “identify” with it. It’s only when you feed it with attention/interest would the noise stay on longer. When the mind gets noisy it’s usually playing out some repetitive thoughts of anxiety, grief or resentment. When you are conscious of its noise, you have the choice to stay as a space of awareness and allow the noise to fade away in momentum. Even the most intense mind noise cannot last for more than 30 minutes at a stretch if you don’t feed it with attention.
Don’t be afraid of mind noise – A mind, that has a lot of past negative momentum, can suddenly get intensely noisy out the blue and it can totally take you by surprise by its intensity. Most people get scared of this mind noise, and cringe away from it or try to escape it through some means of addiction. But if you are willing to be stay steady in your awareness, you will notice that the mind is just a machine, a radio station, that’s blaring out noisy thoughts of fear and you have the choice to not believe its fears, and stay dis-identified with it.
Mind’s intelligence is mechanical – The reason you fear the mind’s noise is because it feels as if someone is talking to you. But in truth it’s only the output of the neural network of your brain to certain interpretations and projection that it has conjured up based on certain memories/neurons being triggered. It’s just a machine, a neural network, a computer which is running on auto-mode. You have the choice to simply allow the noise to fade away without being totally identified with it. All solutions that are needed will come to you effortlessly, if you stay in this state of relaxed allowing. This is a highly intelligent state to be in.
hello,
i’m new to your site and i thought i would reach out to ask for some suggestions. i am going through a terrible crisis and nothing seems to help. in reading a bit about the observer/witness i would like to learn how to not attach myself to these awful future-based, anxiety-ridden thoughts that are taking over my life. where should i start? my mind is having a hard time wrapping itself around these concepts especially how you can’t force think positive thoughts. i keep trying to shut off the negative thoughts and it just generates more anxiety.
thanks,
tam
Hi Tam,
This universe runs on the law of attraction (it’s the principle behind
creation). Law of attraction simply states – like attracts like. So
negativity will attract more negativity, while joy will attract more joy.
So if you desire to manifest a positive reality around you, all you need
to do is let go of giving interest/attention to negative thoughts and
slowly, but surely, start allowing yourself to think thoughts that give
you joy/hope/good feeling.
Also start avoiding/ignoring things/people that don’t feel good to you and
start aligning more with doing things that make you feel happy/relaxed.
This a choice that you will need to make, consciously, initially .. but
with time this choice will become so natural in you that you will always
move in the direction of your joy by default. When you make the choice
towards joy, you make the choice towards life itself. And things will
start shifting in your reality, and you will find yourself in a reality
that is congruent with joy and peace.
I understand that you are surrounded by a highly negative reality right
now, so your brain automatically stays rooted on observing the negativity
of your present reality and thus keeps thinking more and more negative
thoughts. Unfortunately, these negative thoughts will only further give
fuel to the survival of the negative reality. So to break free from this
cycle you will have to take the courage/discipline/focus to start letting
go of negative thinking (no matter how strong its pull) and start finding
ways to make yourself relax/feel good.
You have the freedom to not identify with the “brain” or the mind. The
brain has a huge momentum of negativity going on, due to your past
unconscious attention to its negative thinking patterns. Now you have the
choice to stay conscious, and stay in a place of not being pulled in by
the brain’s momentum. With time (usually in a couple of months or so) you
will notice that you are becoming more and more stable in your
consciousness and the brain is losing its negative momentum.
Dis-identification is the only way you can really allow the brain’s
negative momentum to die away.
Once the momentum of the brain has slowed down, you will find that its
easier for you think positive thoughts or stay in the relaxed space of no
thoughts. Till then, the best practice is to simply stay as “relaxed
awareness” and allow the brain’s negative momentum to ebb away (give
yourself atleast two months before you take score of how much the brain’s
negative momentum has slowed down).
“But if you are willing to be stay steady in your awareness, you will notice that the mind is just a machine, a radio station, that’s blaring out noisy thoughts of fear and you have the choice to not believe its fears, and stay dis-identified with it.”
How can you be aware and not be feeding attention to your anxieties?
A thought can only influence your vibration, or energy space, when you bestow “belief” in it. When I use the word “attention” I am referring to the condition where you are focused on a thought pattern in a state of “belief” (or strong personal interest) in it – and this is what “feeding attention” really means, that you are bestowing belief on a thought. A thought is totally powerless if you don’t wield it with the fuel of belief and interest. This is the state I refer to when I use the term “awareness” – being aware without being pulled into “belief” of a negative thought pattern cause the thought to start losing power in your space.
I sometimes use the term “relaxed awareness” to point to this state where you simply allow the thoughts to pass through you mind without wielding “belief” or “strong interest” in them – just a space of awareness without contracting onto anything. Attention always implies that you have contracted onto a thought or a movement through your belief and interest in it. The only reason the one would give “attention” to negative thoughts is because one has “belief” in them. You can easily be “aware” of negative thoughts without bestowing belief in them, and this puts you in a powerful state of conscious dis-identification with negativity. Attention implies that you are totally taken in by the thought, awareness implies that you are aware of the thought’s presence but you are not totally taken in by it through your belief in it. Awareness brings a highly intelligent and transformative influence into play.
What do you think about affirmations sen?
Also once you’re in a position where you no longer identify with the thoughts in your mind, and the amount of negativity is reduced, should positive thoughts come naturally or should you try and consciously think positive thoughts?
What I find more powerful is “positive visualization” where your mind is focused on visual images of your desired realities. For example, if you are facing a certain illness in the body, consciously focus your mind on images of wellness (it doesn’t even have to be the image of your body, you can even visualize the wellness you see in someone else). The images of wellness will immediately root your mind in a vibration of allowing the intelligence of life to flow through your cells and enable them to repair themselves (or strengthen themselves) to manifest the reality of body wellness. If you find yourself feeling empowered when you use positive affirmation, go ahead and do it. The bottom-line is to let go of focus on negativity, whatever helps in this process is welcome.
In my own personal experience, I found that as the momentum of negativity in the mind kept reducing, I started becoming privy to positive thoughts more frequently (without any conscious effort). The reasoning is simple, when you let go of the negativity, you automatically keep getting pulled in to the positive momentum of your life stream and this positive momentum causes the generation of positive thoughts, in your mind, on its own. When you become aware that your mind is focusing on negativity – you can either make a conscious effort to create a focus on positivity (sometimes it can be very tough to do this when the mind has a strong negative momentum going) or you can just let go and stay as a relaxed space allowing the negativity to ebb away in force. Both these process ensure that you are not taken in by the negativity of the mind and thus it keeps losing its power of influence on your vibration.
Sen, when my mind is silent and peaceful, I daydream about good things but suddenly, faces of persons who have harmed/hurt me in the past
intrude/invade/disturb my fantasies.For example, when I daydream about dancing with someone, suddenly an unwanted person(s) who has hurt me in the past becomes a part of that fantasy.I let go of the disturbing images.But it is very frustrating and difficult to concentrate on my daydream. I cannot continue and I’ve to start from the scratch.But again they come up.When I stop daydreaming they go away.It’s not like I fantasize to escape from negative thoughts.I daydream only when my mind is calm.How do I deal with this? Do I have to wait till I reach total inner freedom?
GB, the truth of the situation is that you are still carrying a lot of hurt (possibly sense of inferiority, fear and resentment) from the past which you’ve not consciously faced, and thus not released. You’ve labelled them as “disturbing” because they still have a strong grip on your being. You have allow your awareness to touch these “dark nature” thoughts, instead of trying to find an escape from it by labeling them as “invasive” thoughts. Even though you mention that you are not trying to fantasize to escape from negative thoughts, it’s also possible that you fantasize to cling to good feelings which is why you feel disturbed as soon as the darker feelings like hurt come up (which is a natural reaction of the mind, but is still an unconscious response). You need to consciously allow these dark feelings in you, in your state of open awareness which can allow the release of the emotions that got stored-up during these incidents. You can read the below posts for more insight
http://www.calmdownmind.com/positive-thinking-vs-fearless-awareness/
http://www.calmdownmind.com/allowing-the-release-of-suppressed-energy/
Thank you very much, Sen!