How to Quiet Your Mind In A Conscious and Mindful Way
Have You experienced a moment during Your divorce recovery process when Your mind won’t stop nagging even when You try Your hardest to not think about it? Isn’t it tiring? It’s like Your mind has a life of its own that no matter what You do, the negative thoughts, memories, and feelings keep flowing out like a Heron’s fountain, repeating in a seemingly endless loop.
It’s like You’re in a monologue play with Your divorce as the main topic of the script and the scenes are those “should’ve, would’ve, and could’ve” in Your marriage playing inside Your head over and over again. Even though You’re exhausted — physically and mentally — it won’t stop playing. It’s draining Your energy and depriving You of sleep and happiness. Worse, the stress is often making You lose Your temper, and become easily irritated to the point that it’s negatively affecting Your work, Your relationship with other people especially Your loved ones, and Your overall healing.
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IS THERE A WAY TO QUIET YOUR MIND TO PROCEED WITH HEALING?
For everyone undergoing a divorce, a noisy mind is a common occurrence. It’s normal and nobody can stop it because it is how the unconscious mind works as it tries to make sense of a traumatic event. Fortunately, like a very loud radio, there’s a way to quieten its voice — by simply lowering its volume. Accept that and everything its saying exists, it’s not going anywhere, and You are powerless to push it away. Hence, all You can possibly do is to just minimize the volume and learn to quiet Your thoughts. This way, You can focus on important things and achieve Your ultimate goal to move on.
To help You hush Your mind, You need to practice mindfulness and learn how to awaken Your consciousness.
Consciousness and Mindfulness are interrelated to each other yet they differ in practice. Being conscious, enlightened, and awakened, is observing, watching, or simply being a spectator or the awareness that is aware of how the unconscious mind or the ego is identifying with thinking and feeling.
Mindfulness, on the other hand, is being full of the conscious mind. Having the ability to purposefully pay attention to Your present internal (ideas, emotions, and sensations) and external (physical environment, other people) circumstances, including the ramblings of Your unconscious mind, in a manner that is in a gentle, focused, and non-judgmental way. When You’re conscious, You perceive the things and events happening around You, both negative and positive, in the shoes of a kind unbiased outsider, not a noisy naysayer. But in order to stay conscious, You need to learn mindfulness to be able to stay in the present and calm Your deafening unconscious mind.
Once You’ve reached the stillness created by these two powerful modes of healing, Your loud unconscious mind’s tendency to run off in different directions, time travel to the past or future, and invent impossible backstories and precarious biases, will be averted. Being aware of Your thoughts and feelings and seeing them from a different perspective decreases the power of Your noisy mind over You. As You shift Your attention from the noisy negative thoughts into the now, You will be able to see the bigger picture, the 360-degree view of Yourself that You’ll notice those areas of Your life that need focusing on and that need healing.
Mindfulness allows You to be conscious and being conscious is being objectively still, calm, and unbiased even in the face of difficulty. It allows You to choose wise decisions instead of responding thoughtlessly and ignorantly. When You’re aware and impartial, You view things objectively and clearly as they are happening in the Now and Your judgment is less likely to be influenced by the narratives You set about the past or Your worries about the future.
HOW DOES ONE BECOME MINDFUL AND CONSCIOUS?
One ancient, popular, and easy way to practice these techniques is simply being aware of Your breathing. Breathing is the easiest way to reach mindfulness because one cannot NOT breathe. It is constant and is always in the now.
To do this, try and take a pause as You’re reading. Switch Your attention to the way You breathe. As You inhale, notice how the air enters through Your nose, fills Your lungs, and enlarges Your diaphragm. Then, feel the air inside of You exit from Your lungs through Your mouth or nose, as You exhale. Hear Your breath. Pay attention to how Your chest heaves up and down as the air moves in and out of Your body. Direct Your focus on Your abdomen moving with Your breathing. Be attentive at how deep or how shallow Your breathing is.
As You’re doing this for 10- 20 minutes, You will notice that You’ve created a quiet and peaceful space within You. Your noisy thoughts became murmurs. You know they’re there but Your attention is not with them but with Your breathing, Your present. Once You’re in that inner space or stillness, You know that at that moment, it is Your consciousness, the awakened one that took over control. And there is nothing more to do than to observe Yourself with a kind heart.
What did You feel? How would You describe it? Amazing right?
We often disregard the fact that we breathe, even though it is the most important act everyone has to do to stay alive. If You keep in mind and remember that You’re breathing, that alone would fill You with gratitude and happiness as You become appreciative of Yourself, others, and the life You live. And that whatever circumstances and challenges You’ve experienced in Your past and will experience in Your future, are all fleeting moments that do not and will not define Your Being, hence, You will never let it control You. This is the true power of mindfulness and consciousness.
