Beyond the wall of thought

Are you looking for a more fulfilling life? The greatest opportunities present themselves when we embrace life with innocence and an open mind.

Whether in business, chatting with friends, watching a film or practising our martial arts, we think we are here in the present. Like a child responding to the school register, if asked if we are present, most of us would say we were. If challenged we would protest that we were wide awake and ready to go. The truth is, however, that most of us are not. That is the reason why most of us miss the greatest opportunities that are in front of our noses.

Mental chatter

Since being around 2 years of age, maybe even younger for some, we have been accumulating; ideas, memories, attitudes, fears, hopes, dreams and ambitions just to name a few. As our personalities have become more consolidated and our characters stronger this collection of thought has become a massive concentration of mental chatter; and it continues to grow every second.

Wheat and chaff

Some of it is useful: rules of thumb, things we have learned such as coping mechanisms, strategies for success, information and education that we can use to our advantage. Some of it is no more than ‘skull cinema’, multi-dimensional daydreams about winning the lottery, re-runs of an argument with a loved one, rehearsals of conversations yet to come, negative rants about the client who is being too demanding or the supplier who has let us down on an order. We have to split the wheat from the chaff. How will we spot the greatest opportunities when we are gazing at our navels?

The fact is that not only is this wall of thought getting thicker and taller the whole time but we are emotionally responding to it, often subconsciously.

Where are we?

“You said we were not present” I hear you protest. “What’s this mental chatter got to do with not being present?” That’s simple. Mental chatter belongs to the future and the past. If we are truly addressing this moment, right here and right now, there is no room for thought. You go to cross a road and you realise you have stepped in front of a bus and before you know it your body is in full fight or flight and you are launching yourself at pace out of the way of the oncoming disaster….and you have never felt more alive. The greatest opportunities and the greatest responses are in the present moment.

Then, on the other side of the road, you realise what happened; you cognitively appraise it, you re-live it. In effect, your mind takes you back through the whole process from seeing the bus to getting out of the way and now you feel fear, relief and a whole range of emotions that have nothing to do with WHERE-YOU-NOW-ARE; the other side of the road, out of harm’s way. The mind wants to grab life in its hands, inspect it, play with it, mull over it and while it does that, life goes on – with or without you.

Addressing the moment

Clearly your body and your being are in the present at all times even if your mind is not, and we are often responding to the present moment – driving, communicating, working etc. Here’s the issue. When you are driving are you 100% focused on that activity or is there a portion of your mind that is thinking of the meeting you are going to or the one you are leaving, what you are doing that evening or how last night went? When you are communicating with your colleague, your friend, your boss or your client are you really attending to that moment, totally immersed in the present and responding to that person with an open mind or are you looking through a cloudy filter of mental chatter? If we look deeply at ourselves we often realise that we are responding more to the mental chatter – thoughts and feelings related to the past and the future – more than this very moment.

Do yourself a favour

When you reflect on the last 10 years of your life and look at the things that worried you – fear of job loss, the end of a relationship, money troubles etc.  – ask yourself what caused you most grief over those 10 years. Was it those events actually becoming reality or was it the fear that they might? If they did occur, even then where did most of the pain come from? Did it actually invade you from the outside or did it come from inside the mind – the sense of loss or failure, of being uncertain for example? Let’s face it, when we take notice of our lives as they really are – right now I am sitting on a comfy sofa with my laptop on my knee and all is well – there isn’t a problem even if our mind tells us there is about to be a problem any moment. Stay in the present moment. That is where peace, tranquility and clear thinking live. This is also where the greatest opportunities are awaiting your attention.

Easier said than done

The mind is cunning though. Without practice it is not easy to remain in the present. The mental chatter will pull you into the past and the future, filling you with various emotions. The samurai had a wonderful phrase for dealing with the mind and mental chatter: “Make your mind your friend.” Instead of trying to clear the mind or ignore intrusive thinking, we can learn to watch it. This is one of the most powerful yet basic forms of meditation and comes from the Zen tradition (or Chan). All we need to do is to sit still, allow the body and breathing to settle and then bring our attention inwards to the mind. As thoughts arise inside our heads we neither embrace them nor push them away. The aim is just to watch them.

If we get carried away by a thought sooner or later we will become aware of that and then we bring ourselves to the present again. As soon as we become aware of our thoughts and emotions we are in the present because awareness itself is here in the present. This practice also shows us that we are NOT the thoughts, reflections, memories and emotions that we are watching. We are, in fact, something much deeper than that – we are the awareness itself.

Operating from a deeper level

Once we have learnt to view the world directly rather than through the veil of mental chatter, our lives become full of potential and opportunity. Everything is possible. Our minds are opened. The self-limiting beliefs that we have accumulated over the years because of past events are tangled up in the mental chatter which still exists but is now at one side of us rather than interfering with our thinking. We are now free to engage totally and without prejudice with this task, this person, this life, here and now. That is why people who practise “mindfulness”/ meditation do better in examinations, are less susceptible to depression, anxiety and other related conditions, are less reactive to situations and more resilient to adverse events, bouncing back quicker. These are just a few of the scientifically proven benefits of meditation.

If you want to grab life with both hands and make the most of this moment, learn to meditate. I am always happy to help people discover meditation. For more information, get in touch.