Roger Harty: Understanding How The Mind Works

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rsz_roger_hartyWorry is a waste of time says Roger Harty

I WAS talking to a family member a few years ago and during the conversation he informed me that it was impossible to have two thoughts in your mind at exactly the same time.

There might be a minute fraction of a second between them, but the two thoughts cannot occur at exactly the same time.

That statement struck a chord with me because around that time I was trying to come to terms with my own thought process – in other words my mind was bothering me.

Just like an artist cleaning his easel before doing a painting, I want to set my own ground rules before I start writing about the mind.

First of all what do I mean by the mind? Interestingly enough, despite thousands of operations taking place all over the world every year, no surgeon has ever in the history of mankind claimed to have discovered a mind!

When I refer to the mind, my ground rule is that I am referring to the ‘thinking mind’ only as there are many other facets to the mind.

Here are a few facts about the mind.
• The average human being has about 60,000 thoughts in a day
• About 90% of those thoughts are repetitive and are of no real benefit to us as they are only repeating themselves over and over again.
• About 80% of the thoughts that we do have are negative – this is a normal part of our conditioned human programming – in other words we are conditioned towards fear (worry).

So “Roger what is all of the overall information above about and how can it benefit me in my daily life?”

Well first of all, to do anything or to fix anything we need to be motivated to change. The motivation to change surely comes from the awareness and the realization of how self-harmful the thinking mind can be and also how devious it can be, because this harm is caused to ourselves by ourselves in the realm of the subconscious unaware thinking mind.

Now for the good bit – the solution is totally within our own hands and it is available to every single human being whether they realize it or not, but it can only be brought to fruition by each individual in his/her own right.

The solution lies in the practice of mindfulness and meditation. As I explained earlier, you cannot have two thoughts at exactly the same time.

Neither can your thinking mind be in two places at the same time and here lies the ultimate solution to worry, anxiety, depression, stress etc.

If you focus your mind on your breath or for that matter your breathing process and if you are truly focused on what you are doing then for that moment, you are free from the control of the thinking mind.

This is a process that like any other process must be practiced and is best done in a non-judgemental manner – the reason for this is that if we are judging the process we are thinking and the real benefit comes from the long term practice of non-thinking.

There is a very useful eBook available free on the internet called ‘Mindfulness in plain English’ which will help put to bed many of the myths that surround meditation.

I cannot overemphasise the importance of the breath in meditation, so next week I will continue the discussion with this in mind.

• Roger Harty is a life coach and can be contacted on 087-6128336, on twitter at @Innerjoyz1 or by email rogharty@gmail.com Roger will be speaking at Rathkeale House this Sunday at 3pm at the Holistic and Health Fair in aid of Milford Hospice, Limerick. For more information see https://www.facebook.com/events/271673616338960/permalink/274588312714157/

 

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