Quiet Mind - Stress Relief

The stress levels we deal with on a daily basis are astounding. We are always coming and going and consistent with the chaos of our environment, our minds are equally under attack with constant thinking, often in cyclical patterns about our past or our future.

How often do you ever just stop? I mean really stop. How often do you quiet your mind?

If you practice yoga and meditation, you're coming to this with an advantage because you already know and hopefully have experienced a time where you are fully in the moment and your mind is quiet. But maybe this is all new for you and you want meditation for beginners...

Quieting the mind can be very hard to do, but once you tap into it, you'll never want to go back. If you suffer from anxiety or have strong emotional pain, quieting your mind feels even harder to do. But, if your in a tough place mentally or emotionally right now - overloaded at work, problems with the kids, problems in a relationship, surviving a breakup- giving yourself some peace is always worth a shot. Everyone deserves to be happy and calm.

I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" which inspired this post so I will paraphrase some of his ideas. In the beginning of the book, Tolle talks about gaining an awareness that you and your mind are separate. If this sounds completely out to lunch, just think about it for a second (with an open mind, nudge nudge).

Have you ever considered the possibility that you have a power of consciousness that is beyond your thoughts? As in, what would happen if instead of allowing your thoughts to completely consume you emotionally, what if you could just for a minute step outside of yourself and observe.

Be an observer to your thoughts.

By taking yourself away from the overactive thoughts you are able to look at them and therefore perhaps realize that the "you" you identify with might not be defined just by your thoughts but the "you" you know by just being.

Tolle explains that there is a deeper level of consciousness that we all can access when we separate ourselves from the constant thinking (which consequently is often in a negative, unhealthy pattern obsessing with what has occurred or what will happen.)

In the spiritual world, this practice of quieting the mind is often referred to as meditation.

Millions of people all over the world practice meditation. There are different roads to get there - yoga is one popular choice - but the point is that if you're feeling overwhelmed, try to challenge yourself by finding what a teacher of mine once called "the space between the thoughts."

If you're overloaded with racing thoughts, try to take a moment to observe them. Don't let them take over and identify you. Separate yourself from them and don't analyze them. Just let them aside, even if just for a moment and in that moment you may find solace or even joy. As I mentioned before, this is no easy task. Meditation is a practice and as such it requires you to try again and again until you find yourself in a comfortable space.

To quiet the mind is to fully be in the moment, where past and future are not important, when you can realize that all we ever really have is now. Give it a try. You might be surprised!

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