Peace of Mind is a Thought Away: Mastering Your Thoughts, Part VI
This is Part VI of an eight part blog which began on April 14.
Though the concepts I am presenting here may seem a little foreign to you or perhaps you are a bit skeptical about them on some level, I can assure you that as you start to look at your mind differently and your thought patterns differently, you can begin to step away from them and thus create a lot more peacefulness in your life.
Instead of being hijacked constantly by negative thoughts and endlessly being in a mode where your thoughts create a lot of wearisome suffering, you can instead consciously choose the thoughts or the patterns that you do want to have, namely the positive, uplifting ones, minus all the static, noisy, negative ones.
In time, you will have enough expertise and experience not to get lost in an energy- draining series of thoughts. You will learn how not to focus on a series of thoughts that bring you down rather than lift you up. You will learn that you can choose to go up rather than down with your thoughts. You can take the high road and stand on higher ground. You can choose your thoughts and, therefore, you can choose your experiences. You can be a master of your thoughts and, therefore, a master of your life!
So simply stated, your thoughts are objects. You can choose to “own” these objects, to buy into them, so to speak, to identify with them, to bring them into your house, to bring them into the garden of your mind, or not.
Yes, there are some very sticky thoughts we all have; so you begin practicing on the easy stuff and eventually you will be able to separate out or move away from the stickier stuff, too.
My “sticky” stuff appears at times. It hits me from behind, so it seems. But I have learned to say, “OK, here comes this show again. How did I get on this channel again? Let’s just kind of ignore it as much as we can.”
By having this internal dialogue, eventually I can change the channel. I can change my mind! I can turn the mute button on. I can switch channels. I have learned that I can really switch channels.
Sometimes the old “dumpy dumpster” chatter or some other life-draining pattern of thoughts comes in. But I can choose and I can change, if I practice. I can choose joy, happiness, peace, freedom, and enlightenment moment by moment, thought by thought; or I can choose their opposites.
Peace of mind is a choice, my choice!
Peace of mind is really just a thought away!
So next week I will lead you in a Thought Counting meditation which I urge you to use on a continual basis.
This is Part VI of an eight part blog.