Make your mind your friend.

Mind – the most powerful, the most critical, the one thing that is the most difficult to leash! Make your mind your friend.

Understanding your own mind itself is not easy; how can you even begin to understand another’s? One needs to make understanding and befriending the mind a life long practice.

The speed of the mind beats all other speeds. It works faster than one can comprehend. It works simultaneously on so many things that we can’t keep up with ourselves, and in fact that is where problems begin.

The mind creates far worse scenarios that what they really are. It exaggerates little things into humongous proportions and not understanding this, you get sucked into its effects and the negative domino effects begin. The scenario created in your head may make you angry, depressed, tired, irritated, frustrated, anxious...and where do any of these emotions lead you to? A place where you cannot progress in any good way, a place where there is no healing, a place where the downward spiral begins.

This is the very reason we hear, “Sleep on the thought. It will have a different perspective in the morning.” Acting on any thought in the heat of the moment is disastrous. Words come out that you did not really mean. You act the way that you never really wanted to. And there begins the regrets...

And this points to something really critical: How you act in a situation not to your liking determines which part of your personality you need to work on; for when everything is going well, according to the way YOU want to, does not really tell anyone who you really are.

Let us go to the very root of all this and what should we do to prevent ourselves from disastrous situations that we create ourselves, or rather our minds create for us.

1. Know you are not unique when it comes to the mind playing games.

2. Meditate, go in solitude, indulge in self introspection, and understand where is the thought originating from, and learn gradually to LISTEN to your better self. No matter what it is in life, it points again and again to the ability to actually listen to what is going on inside you. The psychiatrist can only judge and make assumptions based on data collected over a period of time and prescribe potential solutions. On the other hand, meditation is the best doctor that I know of, that actually enables you to understand yourself and creates a peaceful environment, a fertile ground for the nutritionally rich seeds to be sown for a better tomorrow.

3. Work on yourself everyday, a little at a time, knowing in your heart that you are going to become so solidified that nothing will ever bother you.

4. Know that the only person, the only mind that you have the ability to control is yours. You can only plant seeds for the others; whether they follow or not is their own path. All you need to do is have compassion for them, smile at them, send a prayer their way and progress in your own journey to freedom from the mind J

Love to all,

Umang