You know what time it is?
—A great time to relax that mind of yours.
Stop what you’re doing and name out:
Ground yourself into the present moment and enjoy the beauty that’s already here.
Sometimes, meditating might make you feel anxious.
Of course!
…Because you’re choosing to confront an anxious mind that’s full of clouded, mudded, raging thoughts.
Here’s the thing: the means to settling an anxious mind isn’t done by stirring it up with more information, stimulation, and distraction—it’s done by giving it the space it needs in absence of those things.
Sitting with the discomfort is the means.
And what you might realize, is that your raging mind—like a child raging with a temper tantrum—does eventually relent to the space, boredom, and non-stimulation of a good timeout.
The only question is, can you be firm enough to put your mind in timeout or will you continue to let the child of your mind rage?
Wondering why your mind starts running wild right before bed?
Maybe it’s because you’re not confronting the problems your mind gets wild about while you’re awake.
Maybe you’re so distracted during the day—from the pings, beeps, bells, busyness, and notifications—that your mind conveniently forgets.
Until, finally, you turn the screens off, put your phone down, stop all conversation, and close your eyes to all of the incoming information of the world.
…Of course that’s when your mind all-of-a-sudden gets wild—it remembers. And it can finally start working its way through some of those damn open-ended problems.
Mental confrontation exhausts the mind—so sleep comes easier.
Mental avoidance simply delays the mental confrontation until it can no longer be avoided.
Which is, usually (and inconveniently), right before you sleep.
When you stop the intake of information you give your mind the space it needs to process the information it has already taken in.
Never stopping the influx of information is like continuing to open new tabs on new tabs on new tabs in your browser.
Soon, the clutter overwhelms the machine and everything gets throttled. And, resultantly, you get frustrated, angry, and/or upset.
Rather than getting emotional at your computer—try closing yourself off to all inputs.
Stop opening new tabs. Stop watching videos. Stop having conversations. Stop reading books and articles. Stop listening to podcasts. Just, stop it all.
At least for a period of time. And at least once a day.
Just, let it all—settle.
In more cases than not, what your mind needs isn’t more information; what it needs is more space to process the excessive information it has already consumed.
In short, what you need is to plan more nothing into your days.
Underrated productivity hack: move slower.
When you move slower your mental and physical state calms.
When you’re calm your mind thinks more clearly.
When you think more clearly you get more done.
Step 1) Stop agitating it. Every disturbance clouds the water and sends ripples of distress throughout. This causes the pond to become cloudy and mudded.
Step 2) Filter the water. When a pond is still, most of the wandering particles will settle and the water will clear. But, running the water through a filtration process will expedite and enhance the process of clearing the water. Filtering also removes particles from the pond altogether rather than simply allowing them to settle to the pond’s floor.
Why should you care?
Because a pond is often used as a metaphor for the mind.
And understanding what disrupts and clears a pond can help us understand what disrupts and clears our mind.
So, how can we follow this same two step process for our mind?
Step 1) Stop agitating it. Every disturbance that you allow in through your senses will cause your mind to cloud and become mudded. Every hateful, demeaning, negative, hurtful, upsetting, gossipy, self-limiting, comparison-oriented thought does this. Exposing yourself to more of the opposite helps; meditating helps; blocking sources that agitate you helps.
Step 2) Filter your thoughts. Writing is thought filtered. When you start writing regularly, you’ll think more clearly, act more deliberately, and understand your emotions more than ever before. You could do gratitude themed writing in the morning, reflective/day-planning/goal oriented writing in the evening, thought-releasing journaling during the day, or just write to a blog like I do about whatever is on your mind.
You’d be surprised at how effective this process is at clearing your mind.
And just think about how much easier it will be to see the content of your mind’s pond once it’s finally cleared…
Here’s a thought: want to cultivate inner peace? Stop avoiding inner conflict.
What happens when a fight breaks out and nobody does anything about it? It continues.
And in many cases: it escalates.
It takes the brave bystander to step in before things start to settle; the courageous cop to heave themselves into the middle of a barrage of fists; the over-worked and under-rested parent to draw the line and invoke discipline before the family feuds finally dissipate.
It’s the willingness to confront conflict that leads to peace.
Not the willingness to peacefully ignore conflict in hope that it resolves itself.