Part II
The crazy monkey
Here’s an interesting idea. One random day, instead of scrolling on and on your social channels so rigorously and hopeless, take a pen and a paper and write down all your thoughts. Whatever comes to your mind just write them down and by the end of the day, sit back and look at them… you will be surprised by their variety and I'm pretty sure you will have a good laugh at what the crazy monkey is telling you.
We have one special mind, don’t we? The crazy monkey, funny name they came up with and quite suitable I would say. The crazy monkey is our mind, yes people, our own mind. That loud, weird constant inner chatter that you find so difficult to calm it down sometimes. And so negative, oh man so negative but creative though, sometimes it seems that Alfred Hitchcock is directing your life story, isn’t it?
“The Buddha held that the human mind is filled with drunken monkeys flinging themselves from tree branches, jumping around, and chattering nonstop. He meant that our minds are in constant motion.” Typical mind babble sounds like the following:
Your mind reading off a to-do list.
Your mind listing its fears.
Your mind recalling past hurtful things.
Your mind judging the present.
Your mind creating catastrophic “what-if” scenarios of the future and so many others, right?
All this constant chatter the crazy monkey creates in our head makes it close to impossible to enjoy the present. Observing it, makes me laugh and lately I started saying to myself: “Here I go again..my crazy monkey playing drums..” But it’s hard; it’s really hard we all know that, all that negativity and constant noise affects our mood making us unhappy, moody, angry, restless and anxious. I couldn’t stand it anymore, I decided I need to do something to get it so drunk that would sleep for a while..and there are ways. Here are a few that I tried and worked:
Your thoughts don’t rule you, you rule them! Acknowledge that not everything you think you should also believe. Just laugh and say to yourself: “Here I go again..”
Talk to your crazy monkey! Stop for a moment and listen carefully. If there’s something that needs to be done? Write it down and schedule it for later. Your mind is worried about your future? Reason with it and realize that everything is going to be fine. Reminding you of something from your past? Its past for a reason! Gone! Sayonara! Again make a note on how to learn from it, accept it and let it go. Feel it and forgive and move on.
Meditate! Ok, you don’t believe in meditation, fine..we are all different! But before you judge it, try for 10 min to sit still and pay attention only to your breathing. I can guarantee that it will make you feel better. Resist the urge to move, your entire body together with your crazy monkey will fight it but you’ll get there, even if out of 10 min you will get only 3 minutes of stillness, it’s a start and you will sense the difference almost instantly. It’s the most effective way to calm your mind and it has so many benefits, you won’t believe it.
Stop judging and overanalyse everything! Allow yourself to accept everything that surrounds you as is. You can’t control everything. Just accept, breathe and they’ll go..trust me.
Pray. Regardless your beliefs, just pray to your own God, take 5 minutes and pray. Repeat that prayer few times as you sit quietly in your own bubble and breathe! Everything will be ok.
Distract your attention from it. Pinch your arm; these are just thoughts, just a crazy monkey dancing samba on heavy metal, not real. Look at few things around you and play with them, maybe something you can smell or something that makes a funny noise.
Engage your mind. Why not doing something constructive that draws you in completely? Learn something new, read something catchy, watch something funny, call a friend?
Breathe. Take few deeeeep breaths, in and out, feel the air entering your nostrils and coming out. Feels better, right?
These are just a few and you have such a vast pool of information out there available for you. Although it takes some practice to be able to calm your crazy monkey, it can be done if you really want and from my personal experience, feels so damn good!
I’ll leave you with one thought: If a thought could influence the physical structure of water, just imagine what it can do to us!
I wish you peace of mind, always..