Slowing down my thoughts has a whole new understanding to me Now.
I remember when I was training to be a hypnotherapist. My professor would tell me stories about how he learned to slow down his thoughts. I never grasped what he was referring to at the time. Because during that time I was still on the level of understanding what racing thoughts were.
I was deep in a twelve step program at the time where all the buzz was about racing thoughts and anxiety. I understood my state at the time to be drug related and wasn't even close to were my calm and peaceful professor was. To me slowing down my thoughts meant to stop the rapid cycling of futuristic dooming thoughts. Which is definitely a wise first step to managing your thoughts if that's where you are.
Where I am now with my thoughts is a much deeper place. I have learned to manage my racing anxious thoughts through yoga, mindful meditation and talking to trusted friends. I can catch those back stabbing thoughts pretty quick now, my inner critic is almost bored with the game and leaves me alone most of the time. Now my thoughts have peeled a new layer of slowing down.......
I remember when I was training to be a hypnotherapist. My professor would tell me stories about how he learned to slow down his thoughts. I never grasped what he was referring to at the time. Because during that time I was still on the level of understanding what racing thoughts were.
I was deep in a twelve step program at the time where all the buzz was about racing thoughts and anxiety. I understood my state at the time to be drug related and wasn't even close to were my calm and peaceful professor was. To me slowing down my thoughts meant to stop the rapid cycling of futuristic dooming thoughts. Which is definitely a wise first step to managing your thoughts if that's where you are.
Where I am now with my thoughts is a much deeper place. I have learned to manage my racing anxious thoughts through yoga, mindful meditation and talking to trusted friends. I can catch those back stabbing thoughts pretty quick now, my inner critic is almost bored with the game and leaves me alone most of the time. Now my thoughts have peeled a new layer of slowing down.......
My journey into this phase of my life, has been more enlightening then even I was aware it was going to be. I knew from experience, stepping back from the rat race of life and the ridiculous undue stress we think we must inflict on ourselves to be accepted, was going to bring me into a space to be able to work on lowering my anxiety levels.
What I didn't realize is just how deeply I was gonna peel the onion this time. There is a saying in the healing community that working through your issues is like peeling the layers of an onion back. .......It takes time and your eyes water.... a lot. This time I feel like I am pulling back several layers at once and many areas of my life are being effected. Which is causing my thoughts and feelings to be thrown into the spin cycle of a washing machine.
Every day I am learning something so new that I cant get here fast enough to share it with you before something else comes flying out of the washer excited to enlighten with me its new clean and shiny story.
I am having a hard time slowing down my thoughts again, in good excitement..... but still racing all the same.
What I didn't realize is just how deeply I was gonna peel the onion this time. There is a saying in the healing community that working through your issues is like peeling the layers of an onion back. .......It takes time and your eyes water.... a lot. This time I feel like I am pulling back several layers at once and many areas of my life are being effected. Which is causing my thoughts and feelings to be thrown into the spin cycle of a washing machine.
Every day I am learning something so new that I cant get here fast enough to share it with you before something else comes flying out of the washer excited to enlighten with me its new clean and shiny story.
I am having a hard time slowing down my thoughts again, in good excitement..... but still racing all the same.
Going deeper.
We choose where we place our thoughts. This we know. Yet, now that I am not working a job that absorbs my thoughts and thus controls my energy, I am faced with this free space in my mind. When You open your mind up and clear out all the clutter, something weird happens.
First for my understanding I need to define mind clutter.
For me thought clutter was excessive energy spent on thinking about my job. Those extra worry thoughts that are net necessary, but help you feel more prepared at work. The thoughts are even more intrusive when your job is not where you feel you belong. .... Those thoughts about the boyfriend, analyzing every last drop of the most recent conversation the two of you had. ..... Of course those wasteful thoughts from the inner critic about not being good enough, the back stabbing bitch that she is needs her time in your head too. Futuristic plans and visualizations that absorb energy. I think this one is a doubled sided blade as there are good strategic and healthy plans for the future and then there are the ones that you have to force and leave you feeling chaotic and clogged. I could go deeper here, but that is a concept beyond the scope of this post though.
For me, I had to physically remove myself from the job, from the boyfriend, from fellowship and all things mind boggling in order to clear my mind out.
Now that its clearing I find a few different things are happening.
I am amazed at how deep the wiring goes for some of my thoughts that trigger feelings. I have yet to decipher if its the feeling I am chasing and thus create the thought to invoke it, or if my thoughts have there habitual routes mapped out in my brain and they know no other path to the feeling. I was daydreaming yesterday and found my body physically jerked when I thought about slipping on the ice during this light slumber. I realized then that our body's do not decipher between real or imagined thought action. This has peaked the concern of how powerful my thoughts are with my own emotional responses.
Another thing I am learning about my thoughts..... it takes a lot of energy to create a new baseline of thought. To switch tracks and create new habitual neuron pathways. I simply cannot create new patterns when I am still cycling old ones. It takes too much energy to cycle both at the same time. I don't have time to think of guys and romance when I am trying to stretch my grocery budget so that I don't have to take on a part time job just yet. Learning to prioritize my thoughts. I am sure this is a common understanding among many people, what is astounding to me is how much energy it takes to force my thoughts into a place that they are not serving my higher power.
Once in that place of peace and clam, I know without a doubt will take much less energy to maintain. But to get there, to shift gears.... Wowza! Not an easy task.
This is the new understanding of why the slowing of my thoughts.........
By slowing them I am able to feel and see energy differently. I am able to sense things that when my mind is so cluttered I cannot. I feel like I am coming back into my holistic self. I feel magical again. I have had some pretty cool un-explainable experiences in my life, that have been far and few between while I was stuck in the rat race.
I am Lucid dreaming again!!
I feel so much deeper.... which is a scary thing. I am entirely grateful that I am not terribly involved with the outside world right now. My sensitivity is through the roof right now. Thawing from my emotional trauma state makes for explosive shock responses to simple nerve ending touches. I am well padded in my home life cocoon at the moment.
I am looking forward to continued practice of slowing my thoughts down and rising up to new levels through my Hypnotherapy training. It feels so good to be on this path.
We choose where we place our thoughts. This we know. Yet, now that I am not working a job that absorbs my thoughts and thus controls my energy, I am faced with this free space in my mind. When You open your mind up and clear out all the clutter, something weird happens.
First for my understanding I need to define mind clutter.
For me thought clutter was excessive energy spent on thinking about my job. Those extra worry thoughts that are net necessary, but help you feel more prepared at work. The thoughts are even more intrusive when your job is not where you feel you belong. .... Those thoughts about the boyfriend, analyzing every last drop of the most recent conversation the two of you had. ..... Of course those wasteful thoughts from the inner critic about not being good enough, the back stabbing bitch that she is needs her time in your head too. Futuristic plans and visualizations that absorb energy. I think this one is a doubled sided blade as there are good strategic and healthy plans for the future and then there are the ones that you have to force and leave you feeling chaotic and clogged. I could go deeper here, but that is a concept beyond the scope of this post though.
For me, I had to physically remove myself from the job, from the boyfriend, from fellowship and all things mind boggling in order to clear my mind out.
Now that its clearing I find a few different things are happening.
I am amazed at how deep the wiring goes for some of my thoughts that trigger feelings. I have yet to decipher if its the feeling I am chasing and thus create the thought to invoke it, or if my thoughts have there habitual routes mapped out in my brain and they know no other path to the feeling. I was daydreaming yesterday and found my body physically jerked when I thought about slipping on the ice during this light slumber. I realized then that our body's do not decipher between real or imagined thought action. This has peaked the concern of how powerful my thoughts are with my own emotional responses.
Another thing I am learning about my thoughts..... it takes a lot of energy to create a new baseline of thought. To switch tracks and create new habitual neuron pathways. I simply cannot create new patterns when I am still cycling old ones. It takes too much energy to cycle both at the same time. I don't have time to think of guys and romance when I am trying to stretch my grocery budget so that I don't have to take on a part time job just yet. Learning to prioritize my thoughts. I am sure this is a common understanding among many people, what is astounding to me is how much energy it takes to force my thoughts into a place that they are not serving my higher power.
Once in that place of peace and clam, I know without a doubt will take much less energy to maintain. But to get there, to shift gears.... Wowza! Not an easy task.
This is the new understanding of why the slowing of my thoughts.........
By slowing them I am able to feel and see energy differently. I am able to sense things that when my mind is so cluttered I cannot. I feel like I am coming back into my holistic self. I feel magical again. I have had some pretty cool un-explainable experiences in my life, that have been far and few between while I was stuck in the rat race.
I am Lucid dreaming again!!
I feel so much deeper.... which is a scary thing. I am entirely grateful that I am not terribly involved with the outside world right now. My sensitivity is through the roof right now. Thawing from my emotional trauma state makes for explosive shock responses to simple nerve ending touches. I am well padded in my home life cocoon at the moment.
I am looking forward to continued practice of slowing my thoughts down and rising up to new levels through my Hypnotherapy training. It feels so good to be on this path.