A Servant’s Mind or a Mind’s Servant
Who is in control? You or your mind? This is a pivotal distinction. In the properly ordered person, the mind must take a back seat to the goals of the will. I’ve got a wake-up call for you: If you let your mind do most of the talking and give it too much “screen time” in your life then it is no longer an asset but a detriment. If this is true; stay calm, the battle is not over yet. Thankfully, as long as you’re reading this, there is still time to fight back. Now is the moment to take back control.
Getting control back over our mind
The first step to a properly ordered mind is screening. Like screening phone calls the idea here is much the same. We’ve got to scan what “calls” are coming in through your thoughts and then make the choice which ones are worth calling back; otherwise we’ll just send them straight to voicemail. What qualifies a thought worthy of calling back? A thought worth giving attention and time in your life? Simply put, I’d say anything constructive. While we do not need to subscribe to a positivity extremist agenda, if a thought is neither pushing you forward or giving you concrete evidence on errors to improve upon then it needs to be ignored. For time is precious and we only get so much of it in any given day. Multi-tasking and serious thought do not bode well; your thoughts will get the best of your time so you better make sure they are worth what you are giving them.
Mind as thy Master
Have you ever heard the expression said, “he/she is in their head”? This points to the person who is under authority to their mind; prisoners inside their own body. The mind is no longer yielding to authority within but having free reign over all of its faculties throughout the day. These people, currently losing the battle between the self and the mind, are the same who experience the most depression and anxiety in our society. If you haven’t heard yet, these conditions strike an overwhelming amount of people per year; some estimates as high as 50%! This means an overwhelming amount of people are living their lives in the back seat to their own mind. The mind is able to roam free wherever it pleases. The rest of the self, now in submission to the mind, is then strapped in on an emotional rollercoaster in which it must submit itself to all the highs and lows of a life lived through the imaginings of the head. This is an unhappy place to be. When life is no longer experienced in the physical but instead played back through the mind, as if watching a live sporting event on the tv, it is time to fight back and regain control.
Mind as thy servant
The mind is a tool. One of the most useful gifts we are granted in the human body, it has the ability to solve complex problems and think through multi-dimensional issues. These are just some of the tasks the human mind is able to perform. Even as our technology continues to improve, there is no substitute to the human mind and there never will be. It is a great power…and as the famous quote from the spider man series goes…”with great power comes great responsibility”. If we do not properly subdue our mind and choose what it is to focus on for our good, then it is very likely it can subdue us and draw us out of the physical world and into its own creation. This is the battle at hand: subduing the mind. If it is not for you then it is against you. The will, the conductor of us–the part of us that should hold the control buttons, will be our number one combatant in taking back our mind. Just as we can choose what to give our time to, we also can choose to what we give our thoughts; this is precisely the job description of the will. For some of us he may have been on a sabbatical for some years now, but now is the time he returns and takes back his post as commander and chief.
Going into Battle
Now that we know the stakes and the opposing sides it is time to strategize the attack. Like in most topics discussed on Inside Out, the most important thing here is to take action now. Do not delay for the mind. Using its guerrilla tactics it is subjecting us to monkey mind and seizing more and more ground of us each moment we let our will lay idle. Taking action against it means making a choice, giving the will back his responsibilities. You will need to approach this with many tactics especially if it has been a one-sided battle for a while now. Properly ordering the mind begins when we start giving the mind its orders. The more you give it to work on, and hold it to it, the less it will have to spend running its own way. Develop a schedule, think out your day, and choose how you fill your time wisely. The more time left unspoken for in your day, the more likely that will become thought time and as long as your mind is still holding control this will be detrimental to your overall battle. Even with these additional tactics to keep the mind at bay, odds are it will go rogue. It requires extreme discipline to keep a mind from wandering. This discipline begins with thought suppression. We have the choice of what we think about, this again is the job of the will. Using the litmus test of thoughts, beneficial or not, we have to strive towards letting go of all thoughts unwelcome and especially those not moving us forward. This can be done by redirecting thoughts, picking up another activity, or in extreme cases taking a break to move onto something that will require the mind’s full attention, such as working on brain exercises (crosswords, sudoku etc.), up-tempo physical exercise, or anything that does not leave room for day dreaming.
Putting our mind back to work
This is an ongoing battle to live our life to its fullest from the inside out. We will never be perfect but we can get closer as we keep at it. It is a discipline and the more we enforce good habits of the mind and outlaw its wandering and taking over us, the easier it will become and the more upper hand we will have. This will aid us greatly as we begin to regain the most beneficial tool to us. The more it works for us the better we will be. Keep it working, don’t burn it out, and choose what goes into it. This is necessary to deeming what comes out. More on that another time..