How to tame your mind and experience more peace

In this week’s podcast we’re talking about an anxiety slayer skill to help you tame unwanted thoughts and feel more peaceful.

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Notes from the show:

Sometimes thoughts just show up in our minds randomly. Those thoughts might be useful or not: they might be happy or sad, anxious, angry or fearful.

While the happier thoughts pass without impacting us, the less comfortable thoughts soon grow in our minds and can easily spark anxiety.

Ayurveda on the mind:

Ayurveda teaches that the mind is delicate, changeable, and easily disturbed. If you are suffering with your mind, you are not alone!

The good news is that we are not our minds, and we can use our intelligence to observe and direct our thoughts.

You are not your thoughts. And you can choose new thoughts.

When an anxious thought springs up in your mind, it often triggers some anxiety symptoms. The mind, as it is prone to a negative bias, will be inclined to chase that thought, even zoom in on it, and let it run riot in your head and your body.

Once the anxious thought grabs hold of the mind anxiety grows and feels worse and worse.

If you can catch the thought early, you can redirect it. One way to do that is to have another good thought or meditation readily available in your mind to switch out to.

Another tip that can help is to train yourself to pick up a book and start reading as soon as your mind starts causing you discomfort.

You need to have a book already there, or a prayer, or poem, ready to go. And start practising every time an anxious or unwanted thought comes to mind.

Be careful what you let into your head

What we feed on, feeds on us. We have to be proactive with our minds and choose between taking good care of ourselves and nourishing our mind with sweet thoughts and reflections or mentally whipping ourselves and causing more pain.

Whatever we put in our mind, we have to digest.

Nourish your mind

Overcoming anxiety, adversity, emotional pain etc starts with feeding ourselves well. Good company, inspiring reading, audiobooks or podcasts can all help keep the mind well nourished.

Support your mind with coping skills, hope, and positive thoughts and uproot the brambles of resentment, hatred, and anger.

Keep practising

Every time you do this you are putting your attention on growing better and healthier thoughts, bringing your focus away from the weeds of anxiety, fear, or perceived limitations.

It's a great way to start controlling your mind and it really works for calming anxious thoughts.

 

 

To learn more about working with unwanted thoughts and calming your mind take a look at our How to Calm Your Fragile Mind Course on Teachable