Thursday Seeds | Monkey Mind

I should do this.
In the middle of doing this, I need to do that!
What’s the laundry look like?
Did that kid of mine lock the door?
Is the coffee pot on?
[insert other appliance that can take you down this road]

You know this road? It’s the road that keeps you from what you most need to do:

CALM DOWN!

Not one person can tell you to calm down and you do it. It almost never works unless you’ve done the work.

Did you forget that person’s name that you are about to introduce? Worse, did you say their name wrong?
“Where’s Jeff?” “Oh you mean Jim?” Oops. dammit.

FOMO/POMO

[fear of missing out/pain of missing out]

Did you see on Fb or other social outlet place that someone did something without you? You were in the same city? Too bad. Pain of missing out. Did you call them when they usually book the trip? Fear of missing out.

Those social outlet places are a culprit for this…or are they? Did you get proactive with the person before hand? Maybe not. There is always something that didn’t happen BEFORE you see it happen without you.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

It’s time to call yourself out. And by the way, no one else can really do this but YOU.

It’s time to practice mindfulness. Not just say the buzzword but allow yourself to sit in the pain. And believe me, it won’t last forever.  Besides, you don’t have forever, you are busy! That’s how this happened in the first place!

Being present in the moment is usually the place that you really start to stop and listen to Monkey Mind. “There I go, I’m doing it again…”  Journey back to center and stop thinking. No matter what, [outside of a fire or you are driving a car] you can take ten minutes and do this. It’ll seem like a long time the first few times you do it. When you get the hang of it, you’ll notice that it seems like the time is shorter and shorter. It’s the perception that arrives when your “mindful muscles” start getting used to this getting quiet thing.

Before long, you can stop what you are doing in the very middle of your day and do it. Just for a minute or two, and stay in the present moment.

Meditation can be a life long practice. You can also start at anytime. All you need is you. Guided meditations are nice because they help you focus on something besides yourself. They give this monkey mind business a place to focus on. It’s a hack to distract you.

I love the one that calls the yogi to think about strawberries. You can take all those ideas you get and slap them in a blog post if you want to! Or they can lead to other ideas, your next recipe, or you side slide into ginger or garlic or lemongrass.  You keep this up and your first cookbook is outlined! Don’t stop!  This monkey is now on a mission!

IF you end up doing that, you have to make a deal with yourself to do it again. Maybe the next time, there aren’t strawberries. Maybe there is actually nothing. You’ve gone from a million things you need to do, those things you don’t want to forget, and you just see blue sky with no clouds. Almost…nothing.

It’s then that you can tell that your shoulders are tense. It might take your brain a second to release those muscles. Straighten your spine, align where your arms and hands are resting, align where your legs are. It’s better than that stop in the middle of a run when you have no breath if you get good at it. Problems that stumped you before, the answer flow to you. You are no longer struggling with that difficult co-worker who keeps talking on and on. You just listen. There is in fact value in doing NOTHING.

Doin’ nothin’ is actually doing somethin’.

Come back to Center. Now left of Center and back again.

(Is that a song?)

Here’s another one: pet your pet. it could be…. a rock, plant, cat, dog, lizard.

If you breathe on your plants, its the equivalent of talking to them.

Question: What matters Most? 

If you can answer this question after some time in a meditation practice, suddenly things start falling into place. That worry you had, abates. And if it doesn’t, you know what to do to help it.