Sitting on top of your body and actually throughout the body are components of the mind. The mind is what you and I know of as the thinking part of who we are. The mind has many abilities including: process information, make decisions, taking in new ideas, communications, responding and reacting, emotion generator, creativity, contemplation, understanding, visualization and much more. The mind can be a friendly ally, a tyrant of demands, a reminder of past suffering, a critic, and passionate crusader, an idea player and all of this can be inside of you in few minutes of its busy activity. The mind has much capacity that is still be explored and yet to be realized.
I wanted to share with you today some ways to maximize the mind as a way to help you create what you want in your life and in the world. The following is a collection of 6 mind activities that you will find very helpful if you take the time to explore them.
1. Meditation is one of the most powerful of practices for the mind because it settles the mind down and brings you to a deeper level of awareness and understanding. There are many methods of meditation and finding a teacher can be very helpful. The simplest meditation practice involves taking time away from what you are doing, sitting and following the inhale and exhale of the breath. As you mind wanders into thoughts bring it back to the flow of the breath.
2. Visualization is another powerful practice. You have with the mind a tool for picturing the results you want in your life. If you can imagine it, you can make it happen. Use all your senses in your visualization and it will be a very attractive force. Close your eyes and imagine what want, see it as if you have it now, activate your senses and hear, smell, taste, touch, and sense what you want. Then toss in the emotions of having what you desire. This will send out a powerful message to the Source of All Things and make what you want possible.
3. Contemplation is the capacity to deepen your understanding. The mind has the ability to go beyond the surface, to question, to explore the greater truth, to align with a higher knowing. Contemplation means quieting yourself down enough to explore the greater wisdom that is within you and part of the collective consciousness. The best way to be contemplative is to find a quiet place and to be present to your ideas, then be open to an inner exploration that will take you toward a more expansive understanding. Sitting in silence and being open to the light of insight will allow you to join with the higher knowing in you.
4. Encouraging Mind is the capacity to turn your thoughts into a supportive flow of inspiration. You inner critic is a well-trained noise machine. The encouraging mind is the replacement for the critic. The encouraging mind is full of encouragement, supportive messages, kind words, compassionate, understanding and inspiration. Developing and encouraging mind take a clear intention and the ability to be mindful. The best practice to develop the e-mind is to take time throughout you day to pay attention to what you are thinking. Do Not Judge the thoughts as good or bad, instead begin to replace the critical ones with words of encouragement and compassion self-acceptance.
5. Creativity can be the most fun way to train the mind. There is within you a desire to create, to express that which longs to be expressed. Some people have the false thought that they are not creative, that is not true. Maybe your creativity will be with words, or music, or movement, or colors, or designs, or in the way you interact with others. To find the creative flow sometimes takes listening inward and paying attention to what wants to be expressed. One of the easiest forms of creativity is doing a collage. Get some magazines and start cutting or tearing out pictures and words that you feel connected to in some way. Place those words and pictures on a peace of cardboard, in a notebook, or on a board with some kind of adhesive. You can do amazing things when you let you creativity flow and quiet the inner critic.
6. Questioning Mind is the use of the mind to question what you think and believe, what others think and believe. Let’s start with the idea that all your thoughts should be questioned. Do not assume that your thoughts are real. Your thoughts and beliefs can be falsely passed on to you by others. This is particularly true about beliefs. Most beliefs are false or only part of a greater truth. In this age of information there is much misinformation spread with an agenda to influence you. Train the mind to question what you hear and are told, question your perceptions and the ideas of others. Keep an open mind that is always seeking the higher truth.
There are many other ways to explore training your mind. The important thing is that you make a commitment to harness the mind’s power to do good in your life and in the world. Your mind and mine at it’s best is needed today if making a difference matters.