screen. In our overstimulated society, living in the busy mind can lead to exhaustion and fatigue, chronic stress, and even depression.
Overthinking
Last, overthinking is a major cause of chronic stress in our highly demanding culture. On any given day, you experience thousands of repetitive thoughts, many of which are tainted with judgment and anxiety. Too much planning, worrying, and replaying these loops is exhausting. Incessant thinking creates tension and robs us of peace. Although thinking is useful, overthinking is draining. Although stress is necessary to flourish at times, chronic mental stress causes chronic physical stress, which is harmful to your health.
Get to Know Your Busy Mind
Sloppy brain, being crazy busy, being on autopilot, information overload, and overthinking leave you with little time to be in the moment and little space to show up and shine. Your muddled busy mind becomes the filtered, blurry lens through which you experience life.
Do you live with a busy mind? Are you distracted much of the time? Welcome to the club! Take a deep breath and get excited, because you’re going to discover how to consistently slow down, settle down, and shift beyond your busy mind.
Let’s first get to know what this busy mind of yours is so busy doing.
Take a moment to answer these two questions either on the lines below or in your journal. Your answers will help you get to know your busy mind and how living from it affects your daily activities, relationships, and overall sense of well-being.
List three times during your day when you’re most likely to be distracted, hurried, or anxious (for example, when you’re driving, reading, answering emails, or eating):
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________
Off the top of your head, list three traits that describe your busy mind (for example, feeling overwhelmed, scattered, anxious, rushed, or drained):
1. _______________________________________
2. _______________________________________
3. _______________________________________
Your answers to these questions will offer you new opportunities throughout the day to become familiar with your busy mind. For example, if you tend to space out while driving, use driving as time to practice noticing your direct experience of driving. Turn off the news or music and notice everything around you. Notice the sky, the light on the trees, the noise around you, and how your body feels behind the wheel. Then notice when you forget to notice, when you drift back into your stream of thinking. This is how you train your mind to show up. You notice, notice, notice.
Becoming familiar with your busy mind and how it works is your first step toward understanding how to shift beyond it. You do this by getting to know how your mind operates with a practice known as mindfulness.
Mindfulness is your capacity to show up in this moment and be fully engaged from the level of mind, body, and heart. It’s your ability to notice your firsthand, direct experience of what’s happening — no matter if what’s happening is good or not so good. To be mindful is to simply notice when you show up and when you don’t, when you’re on the verge and when you’re not.
Mindfulness is your capacity to show up in this moment and be fully engaged from the level of mind, body, and heart.
You become mindful when you notice that you’re distracted. The moment you notice that you’re not paying attention, you wake up — instantly! Noticing is enough, every time.
Noticing when you’re passive wakes you up. Noticing distraction wakes you up. This is how you cultivate mindfulness. Notice. Notice. Notice. You can remember to notice by asking yourself the following question several times per hour: “Am I distracted or am I right here right now?”
Ask this question, and it interrupts your mind from whatever it was distracted by (a tense situation at work, the beach, ice cream) and brings you back to the moment (in front of a field goal, a crying child, or a traffic jam). In a second, you can shift from busy mind to clear mind. You pull yourself back into the moment. That’s all there is to it. It’s really a very simple, ordinary thing to do. That’s mental strength training.
To practice mindfulness, show up in this moment, notice when you’re pulled away by a distraction, and, without judging yourself, show up for the next moment. Do this again and again. Notice that your busy mind is undisciplined. Notice how easily you’re distracted. Be prepared to notice a lot of distraction. Doing this over and over again — that is how you practice mindfulness.
Think of your mind as a muscle that becomes weak and atrophies when not used properly and becomes stronger and more stable when challenged to grow. In other words, your mind, if untrained, is weaker and likely to be easily distracted and flustered. Your mind, if disciplined, is stronger and likely to be focused. Imagine noticing as doing bicep curls for your mind. To build muscular strength, you need to either continually increase the repetition of bicep curls or add more weight over time. In the same way, you’ll need to practice noticing and showing up more often or for longer stretches.
Mindfulness is your mental strength training.
Noticing is like doing a bicep curl. Mindfulness is your mental strength training.
Read through the instructions first or listen to the guided practice on the Verge Mobile App. Commit to trying this right now. What do you have to lose? Perhaps just your busy mind!
1. Get settled in your chair.
2. Place your hand just beneath your navel, so you can feel the gentle rise and fall of your belly as you breathe. Take a breath in, and in your mind say, “Inhale.” Pause after your inhalation, saying, “Pause.” Breathe out slowly, saying, “Exhale.” Pause after your exhalation, saying, “Pause.” Repeat.
3. Continue to breathe this way, saying in your mind, “Inhale, pause, exhale, pause.”
4. When you notice you’ve become distracted by thoughts or sensations (and you will become distracted), say in your mind, “Distracted.”
5. Give yourself a mental high five for noticing.
6. Then immediately say in your mind, “Right here right now.”
7. Place your attention back on your hand on your belly and on your next breath.
It’s very simple. Identify what you’re doing (inhale, pause, exhale, pause), notice distraction, give a mental high five, and actively bring your mind back to your breath — over and over again. This is your mental strength training.
The point of this Primer Practice is to get to know your untrained busy mind. Remember, your busy mind is not “bad”; thoughts actually create great stuff. If you let your busy mind rule your world, however, you’ll miss opportunities to directly experience your life in high definition.
Am I distracted or right here right now? Ask yourself throughout your day, and notice how it interrupts your tendencies to overthink, be crazy busy, suffer from information overload, or operate on autopilot or with sloppy brain. This is how you shift from busy mind to clear mind.
Clear Mind: Your Natural Sense of Clarity
When