Mental and Emotional Awareness
There’s a lot going on in your head. And most of the time you’re completely unaware of it. Have you ever caught yourself in a daydream or realised you’ve been driving on ‘auto-pilot’? Your unconscious mind does a lot for you. It makes a lot of your decisions, without you ever having to think. Sometimes that’s not so good. Awareness of your thoughts leads to emotional awareness.
If you’ve ever tried to meditate (which I HIGHLY recommend) you will have noticed your busy mind throwing around ideas, thoughts and memories, pictures, sounds and movies. You concentrate for a while and then off it goes again. What is your internal chatter saying? Is it positive, neutral or negative? Take a moment to listen in to your state of mind. Having an awareness of your mental thought patterns will lead you to understand your emotional state.
Happy people generally have more positive chatter.
Happy people recall past events in a positive way and tend to envision positive outcomes. They notice nice things and appreciate details. Depressed people recall negative events and usually expect the worst outcome. They literally think depressed thoughts. Expressing happiness and appreciation for other people is more likely to leave you feeling fulfilled than if you make harsh judgments about them and wishing they would fall on their face. This also follows that if you’re having negative thoughts of others you most likely treat yourself the same way. If you desire happiness, you need to have positive internal chatter. That means its positive toward yourself as well as others.
We don’t need to go into the psychology of how and why you might think a certain way, just know that you CAN change it. Once you increase your awareness of your patterns of thought, you have the chance to change your mind. Hopefully my other blog posts on wellbeing have given you enough information to follow that changing your mind, your thoughts and emotions, can also change your life physically. And it’s quite simple. It just takes practice. If your immediate reaction was to think that this won’t work for you, then thank you for proving my point (your negative chatter). And please give this a go…
Start now by noticing your inner dialogue.
If it’s a negative or worrying thought, choose to think of a more positive thought instead. ‘See‘ that positive memory, ‘hear‘ what was was being said or the music that was playing. It makes you feel good. This might seem simplistic and although I do use other techniques in my practice, this will get you started. Make a point to practice this throughout the day. And if you need to, change your mind. Repeat often until it becomes your natural thought pattern. Breathe and smile (remember that activates your happy hormones). You’ll notice that people and situations that used to bother you, don’t bother you anymore. You’ll become a happier person who is less stressed, less worried and able to navigate change easily. Being kind to people will be easy, even when you see them struggling with their negative chatter… ?
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