Mind Chatter
Since my second baby was born, I have had little time to myself and even less to meditate. I decided to take a class on meditation for mothers (which was really great by the way, I loved the space/place it was held at www.bloomretreat.com). The class got me to notice the mind chatter that has been going non-stop, unchecked. Silly things, important things, all jumbled together in this non-stop dialogue. I sat with it for a few days and I realized I wasn’t really going to get more time to myself anytime soon. While five, ten, twenty minutes of quiet meditation used to help me manage or change old thoughts I couldn’t rely on that practice for the time being. I had to come up with something simple and easy that I could do to stop the chatter from hijacking my mood .
Rewiring Your Brain
There’s a movie called What the Bleep Do We Know? that I saw a while back and in it there is a part about the connections in the mind that left me with this really neat visual of why I repeatedly have the same thoughts over and over again. I’ve literally wired my brain that way to have these thoughts by having them so many time. A simple example most people can relate to is when you hear a song and it makes you think of a time in your life. Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy will always make me think of the summer before I got married because it was on everywhere constantly. Now it’s wired into my brain that way.
A Quick Trick
Well, let’s just say the paths I’ve been wandering down lately weren’t serving me so I came up with this quick trick. Whenever, I notice that I’m having a thought that doesn’t serve me, makes me feel bad, sad, mad or puts me in a funk, I check it by silently saying to myself, “redirect“. It seems silly but it really works. It’s not that I can stop my brain from starting down a path, that sort of happens on its own. But, as soon as I realize it, I don’t allow myself so much time on that path. By practicing this technique of redirecting my thinking, I am in a generally better, brighter, and more productive mood.
This is what I used to get from meditation that I’ve been missing so much. It’s a more active meditation. I know I am not my thoughts, but having a way to check them, and consciously change old thoughts by choosing new ones is so helpful. Hitting the “redirect” button, is giving me a boost. I shared this with my girlfriend, and she texted me all week that “redirect” was working for her too. Try it and see what you think!