Watching The Mind

This week I tuned into a very interesting Webinar that was run by the One World Academy on Inner Life . It explored how we need to be consistently aware of our thoughts , so that each time we are faced with any kind of emotional disturbance, we can prevent our feeling from becoming over exaggerated ,which in turn affect our psychological behaviour. By doing this continually, we can start to develop insights about how the mind is structured and how our minds operate in certain situation . With practice , it is  possible to  question what the mind  is trying to make us believe and how we often end up behaving as a result.


" to see is to be free"


Therefore, the work we need to do  is nothing more than observation. Krishnaraj, the founder of the One World Academy, described this kind of work as requiring  Passive Effort as it requires very little work at all. However, the simplest things are always the hardest things to master . Our minds are so full of noise and chatter  most of the time, that we are not even aware of the stories we are continually telling ourselves in the course of a day , that is until we actually stop and become aware of our thoughts !


Becoming aware ...


Having always had a very busy mind myself , it was only after reading an amazing book by Eckhart Tolle called the Power Of Now, a few years ago, that I actually became aware of  it ! I'm not quite sure at what point that happened exactly , but I realised that at that stage of my life ,I had a constant stream of  dialogue going on  in my head pretty much all the time ! Some days I would be consumed by long heated altercations in my head . Continuations of conversations that had happened before, things that I was upset about, things I wanted to say to people, things I hadn't said yet. The list went on and on.  My mind and the incessant thoughts were keeping me locked in a place that was unhealthy and  served no purpose other than to perpetuate feelings of bitterness and anger.  

Noisy Mind....

Eckhart Tolle  describes this very well  in A New Earth as "the voice in the head." Once we become detached from that voice and see that our mind has a life of its own , then we reach a new state of consciousness . We have created a" little gap" between ourselves and the mind that allows us to stand back and observe exactly what the mind is doing !


Become The Observer .....


Becoming the silent observer is like playing a game with yourself . I started by imagining  a room in my mind - a dark cosy little alcove where I could sit to be the silent watcher of my minds activity. Whenever my mind raced off , I ( being the conscious I ) would go and sit down in my seat and, to my surprise, my mind would immediately become silent ! The Mind does not like being watched ! Its has no power when it's being observed and checked . You just have to remind yourself to stay alert and detach yourself and sit down to watch it.


Practice Makes Perfect....


As with anything the more you do it  the better you get and the easier it becomes. Thankfully, I now have a pretty  noise free mind and as soon as I hear even the hint of a story starting I sit right down in my chair and that soon puts an end to that ! When I think of how my thoughts affected my behaviour , how they made me feel towards certain people and about certain situations for an awful long time its incredible the power they had over me . "Life isn't as serious as my mind makes it out to be." The mind is a wonderful thing , but it can cause us damage and bring us unnecessary pain if we allow it . Therefore doing inner work is important and after all it only involves a little bit of observation .So next time your mind is racing ,why not pull up a comfy chair, sit back in your favourite corner and just LISTEN ! Smile at the mind , laugh at it and  never take it too seriously .

Why Does My Personality Give Me Such A Hard Time?

Dear Readers


Those of you who have been following my weekly blogs, will have got to know a little bit about me by now and I thank you for taking the time to do that. You may have read last week about my wonderful childhood of which I have many happy memories, and also of the severe Vertigo that has dominated my life for this past year. This week, I would like to "fill in the gap" between my childhood and adulthood, because somewhere in that space, something very strange happened to me - my personality underwent a transformation into something not very nice !!!!


Please don't panic, or feel the need to immediately dial 999! By, something not very nice, I mean not very nice FOR ME!   I have, what I now realise, is a strong Type A personality, as opposed to a Type B personality, and this has caused me more problems than I can tell you. Type A? Type B?  I hear you say ....please allow me to explain .... here comes some info!


We all think our personalities are pretty unique and to a large extent that's true, however the way we behave can be very simply classified into two groups Type A and Type B. If you don't know which group you belong to, there are lots of tests you can do, but just to give you the general idea here are some typical types of behaviour:


Which side would best describe you?

Side 1	Side 2
I am always bang on time!	I am quite laid back about time
I always finish peoples sentences	I listen to people calmly
I'm very ambitious	I'm satisfied with my work life
I'm passionate about everything	I'm reserved and keep my feelings inside
I multitask and get things done!	I do things slowly and think what to do next
I am impatient	I have patience
I am very competitive	I don't feel the need to compete

In a nutshell, Side 1 shows the types of behaviour a person with Type A would generally exhibit and Side 2, Type B. The reason it is good to know just how much of type A or B we have in us, is because we can use this information to change that behaviour if and WHEN it starts causing us problems.


I discovered a while ago that I was very strongly  a Type A person . People like me are great !We work really hard because we're so diligent . We always do very well because we're soooo ambitious. We make great leaders because we lead from the front and by example . We always get things done before time never mind on time ! We work around the clock because we don't have time to feel tired. We never let people down - you can ALWAYS count on us ! Everyone loves us . We're the first to arrive and the last one to leave any occasion - we'll do all the cooking  and washing up ! We're absolutely bloomin  marvelous !!! That is .......Until we CRASH!!!!


And BOY DO WE CRASH ! Type A people will basically push and push and push themselves until they are with in an inch of their lives and only then will they drop. We will basically keep going when everyone else has packed up and  gone home for the holidays . We carry the world on our backs and even then ask for more work because we don't know when enough is enough . We are such perfectionists, that we'll go to the nth degree to make sure we get whatever we're doing "just right" and we'll keep trying until we do, even if it takes a lifetime .We keep absorbing more and more pressure and telling ourselves we can cope even when all the warning signs have started FLASHING!


For this reason, Type A people are their own worst enemy. We don't know when to STOP. We can't say NO ! We are so afraid of failing, of disappointing that we'd rather do damage to ourselves than upset others.
Unfortunately , though it all sounds very noble and very commendable, being like this is very harmful indeed. This type of behaviour and attitude to life leads to a great deal of stress . People with Type B personalities, suffer from and cope so much better with stress and life in general and therefore have fewer stress related illnesses as a result.


My battles with stress started as far back as my student days at University, I actually still have nightmares that I have finals to sit and have forgotten to revise! Stress just became a part of my life and I didn't even realise it . I didn't realised that I never smiled because life wasn't for enjoying or relaxing it was all about work and responsibilities. I didn't realise that I was always in a rush trying to get to the next place, I never had time to stop and notice the flowers or the colour of the sky. I didn't realise that I was always worried about something and if I wasn't worried that I'd actually think of something to worry about! My mind had to be constantly buzzing with a million things and I could never sit still because that would be wasting time and that would never do . The dilemma was, that though my personality gave me great success in my work and other areas of my life , it was also making me very ill indeed.


As a result of my behaviour, I'd had a few run-ins with stress in the past , but over the last few years stress really started to become a problem for me . But the mind and body are really very clever . Even if you push as hard as me, you can still only go so far before THEY just say NO ! That's basically what happened  . I am now learning the hard way . Constantly pushing myself as I have always done has resulted in a total balance system breakdown - the fuse has blown! Stress has been the main cause of my Vertigo. Now I have no choice but  to wait until my body is ready for me to go again.


So ,now I need to use this time wisely to learn and to change  . And this was why I chose to write about my personality this week dear friends. Because even after going through all that I have for the last year , I'm sorry to tell you that I'm still falling into the same  A Type personality traps!  Just this week I have found myself putting myself under huge pressure to achieve things I know I can't, over promising things I can't deliver because I'm not well enough and just generally overdoing things. Ive read so many  books on how to slow down  , I meditate everyday , I'm on so much medication  it's a wonder I'm not asleep 24hrs a day as it is !!! yet still I can't seem to change or stop my initial response to things being typically Type A . When will I learn?


But I guess recognition is the first step to recovery, so hopefully the second will be change . I'll have to keep working on that one and maybe someday, if I'm really lucky,  I too will attain that Zen like state of enlightenment and peace of "no mind" that I long for so much !  And with that beautiful thought I will leave you dear friends for another week , till then go safely and go with love wherever you go and have an amazing week . Sur x