Taking Charge of Our Thoughts
Welcome to this edition of the Weekly Circle—where we start the week with a few ideas that make us think.
This week, we’re thinking about Our Thoughts. Indian author, professor and spiritual leader Eknath Easwaran said it best:
All negative thoughts – anger, fear, passion, compulsive craving -- tend to be fast. If we could see the mind when it is caught in such thoughts, we would really see it racing. But positive thoughts like love, patience, tenderness, compassion, and understanding are slow - not turbulent, rushing brooks of thinking, so to speak but broad rivers that are calm, clear, and deep.
I just started reading Eknath Easwaran's Conquest of Mind: Take Charge of Your Thoughts and Reshape Your Life Through Meditations, a book that was gifted to me. He explores how we can teach ourselves to manage our minds through meditation. I always thought I was good at this, but in fact, I still get bummed out when negative thoughts infiltrate my mind. Not good.
For me, it's shifting to have control over these thoughts rather than the other way around so I can take control of what's important to me in my life. The brain does not create thoughts unless we stimulate it with habitual verbalizing. When we train ourselves by constant practice to stop verbalizing, the brain can experience things as they are. This is where we can start learning about ourselves.
We'd love to hear from you!
How do you manage your negative thoughts? How has it changed your perspective?
A few things for you to click on:
🎥 Slow Down to Go Faster - commit to a process of deliberate creation.📖 Do Thoughts Ever Stop? - How does 'quieting the mind' work?
🎥 Being Busy vs Productive - make an impact on how you focus
That's all! Wishing you all great start to November.
Warmly,
Jesal
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