The mind is a powerful apparatus, the ramblings of which we are starting to understand in useful ways. We humans are thinkers. We think. A lot. What some may not be aware of is that thoughts elicit emotions in the body. The mind thinks and the body feels. According to Biologist and Epigeneticist Bruce Lipton, “Thoughts are the language of the brain, and feelings are the language of the body. The body responds to thoughts through emotions.” The feelings elicited by thoughts then complete a loop and affect thinking, resulting in a cycle that repeats: thoughts arouse emotions; emotions prompt thoughts.
Commonly its a shit show between mind and body. Through our experiences, and largely by the influence of others, we develop habits of thinking. These thought patterns or habits are stored in the brain’s neural network through practice, and neurons that fire together, eventually wire together. Over time, thought habits get recorded in our default mode network and replay automatically, perhaps without our awareness. This collection of our thoughts, beliefs, expectations and emotions shape our life experiences.
Thoughts arise from our own unique perspective of things. We perceive the world though our senses – sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. The meaning we assign to things based on our perceptions shapes our thinking. That something is “good” or “bad” is only a result of our belief about it, not by the actual something we are observing. Our beliefs are simply thoughts we keep thinking. Things just are, and when we take away our judgement of things, the whole picture changes.
To demonstrate this, consider this scenario: you wake up at 3 am to pee, and when you get back to bed, you are awake. You toss and turn for some time, perhaps only reaching a light doze, but not the solid sleep you think you need. After an hour or two you start to agonize over how tired you’re going to be in the morning and all the things you need to get done in your day that will suffer as a result of your sleeplessness. You think and believe that your day is going to suck, and it probably will.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. You have a choice here. You may not be able to “choose” to fall back to sleep – you either will or you won’t. But you don’t have to mull over how bad it is. You can tell yourself, “perhaps I’ve had all the sleep I need”. I can use this time to think about all the good things in my life. “Perhaps I will be fine tomorrow.” Perhaps my day will be great and I will be full of energy and vitality. Practice this a few times and see how true it is. Then take other experiences in your life that you view as “bad” or “uncomfortable” or “tragic” or negative in some way, and practice changing your view by questioning whether it really is that bad.
Thoughts that elicit feelings such as hope, appreciation, passion, love and joy support the well being and balance of the body and mind. However, if dominant habitual thought patterns are fearful, tense, worried, angry, depressed, hopeless, or apathetic the body experiences tension, aches, pains, imbalance, fatigue, and eventually illness.
It is entirely possible to undo negative cycles of thinking that make us sick and tired. Meditation is one of the most powerful tools for changing negative habitual thought patterns and replacing them with ways of thinking that foster well being and vitality.
Here are some examples of thoughts that are worth changing: I don’t deserve well being and vitality; my body is broken; I can’t trust my body to stay healthy; something is wrong with me; I’m okay ONLY if certain criteria are satisfied; I’m not lovable; nothing ever works for me; I’m not worthy of happiness. Do any of these thoughts hit home for you? Keep reading.
The body system most affected by meditation is the nervous system. The first objective of meditation is to relax the body, switching the physiology from sympathetic (fight, flight, or freeze) to the parasympathetic (rest, repair and digest) operation. When you get really relaxed, you are much more receptive to ideas. When you meditate you are relaxing the body and quieting the mind to get below the feedback loop and taking away its power. You can then reprogram or change the repetitive tapes that keep you stuck in your less-than-healthy thought patterns that make you sick and tired.
Many folks who are aware of the life changing benefits of meditation report that it is very difficult to quiet the mind. And it is! This is the main reason people stop meditating and give up on the practice, or don’t even try in the first place.
There is a simple antidote to the “can’t stop thinking” dilemma – use guided meditations. There are thousands of these precious jewels available at our fingertips, for free. YouTube and Insight Timer are great places to start. Choose a topic you want to improve such as body healing or more loving relationships or self love and find mediations you enjoy. Start with 5 minutes per day if that is all you are willing to invest. The key is to do it daily and be consistent with your practice.
Guided meditations coax you or talk you into elevated emotions (feelings) such as appreciation and love. The key here is feeling the emotions, not just thinking about topics of “appreciation” and “love”. You get the benefit when you FEEL those elevated emotions and not just think about them because feeling or experiencing positive emotions changes our physiology in profound ways. When you feel elevated emotions such as hopefulness, enthusiasm, gratitude, love, passion, joy, or even contentment, your body produces chemistry that supports vitality. The improved physiology then feeds back into more positive thoughts, which then complete the loop into more positive feelings.
By adopting a daily practice of meditation of any type, you are investing in your mental and physical well being. By doing this daily, you are basically practicing feeling good, or feeling nothing, as opposed to old habits of feeling sorta crappy a lot of the time. Like any activity or habit of value, it takes practice to get good at it. In time, you begin to develop the habit of feeling good. You’re just learning a new skill. Your body will heal. Your soul will heal. Your relationships will heal. Your clarity and creativity expands. You will have more energy to pursue things that make your life feel meaningful.
But YOU are the only one responsible for your thoughts and feelings and experiences. People and experiences certainly can uplift or bring us down, but we always have a choice to let go control, and with practice, we can choose our responses more mindfully. The only place we are going to build a solid foundation of well being is within. The moment you realize this, you stop hoping the outside world will change so you can finally be happy, and you start looking in the only place your happiness exists, inside yourself.
Grow Your Love 