Can You Escape The Tyranny Of Your Mind?

You try to listen, you really do, but then your mind says something like:

“Gee, if she really cared, she’d get that I’m tired and need some time alone.”

This thought inflames your emotions, and next thing, you’re feeling irritable.

“Tell her she needs to be more considerate,” your mind urges you. “Tell her how she NEVER does enough to think about your needs.”

These words make you even more annoyed, and on the continued prompting of your mind, you decide to tell your partner a few home truths.

Your partner is shocked by the sudden outburst, storms off, and, left alone to your thoughts, your mind pops in again.

“Wow! You really screwed that up. I can’t believe what a selfish prick you can be. Couldn’t you tell that she needed some company? Couldn’t you tell that she was feeling emotionally vulnerable?”

On and on our mind goes changing itsopinion from one second to the next, and yet it seldom occurs to us to question the wisdom of its advice.

But if our mind were truly honest, it would say, “Hey, maybe given my track record, you’d better not pay much attention to me. I mean, thinking about it, I often seem to only make things worse for you.”

And even if we do, from time to time, question the wisdom of our mind, with its help, we are typically quickto forget about our doubts.

Yep, a day after deciding we will never take our mind seriously again, we’re ready to do whatever it says!

Sweet Poison

One of the most insidious things about our mind is how it can pretend to be our caring advisorwhile sliding the dagger in between our ribs.

It pretends to say things to console us, to comfort us, and all the while, everything it says only makes us more and more agitated.

I remember a time many years ago when I undertook my first solo meditation retreat out into the desert.

I wanted to see what it would be like without any human interaction or external stimuli to distract me from the present moment, so I headed out in my camper to a national park out by the Big Desert, and forbidding myself to read or listen to music or do anything but walk and meditate, began a 10-day retreat.

At the time, I was an experienced meditator, and I typically did several hours of practice per day, but this was something else. Not having anything to distract me and having such a huge span of time ahead of me, it was as if the days stretched out forever.

With nothing but the present, undistracted moment for company, time slowed, the days dragged on, and, like a knight in shining armour, in rode my mind with some comforting words:

“Don’t worry,” it told me at the end of the eternally long first day, “you only have NINE days to go.”

It said these words as if it were trying to console me, but its words, predictably, only drove a spike of tension through me. Nine more days! A near eternity.

But my mind didn’t stop there, and each word of ‘consolation’ only made me feel worse.

It was like when your mind so helpfully chats to you when you’re suffering a bout of insomnia.

You have an important event on the next day. You’re struggling to sleep, and that’s when your mind steps in and starts analyzing the situation.

“You know, you really do need a good eight hours’ sleep for an event like this,” it tells you. “It’s really important. You absolutely need to get to sleep right now!”