What if everything was really ok, but you've been hoodwinked into thinking otherwise?

What if everything was really ok, but you've been hoodwinked into thinking otherwise?

Just ‘what if’?

Have you ever woken in the middle of the night and lay there, turning things over in your mind? Problems look so big in the night, so scary. I think it’s got to do with there is simply nothing else but darkness and our thoughts, which creates a pretty intense experience. Then you wake up in the morning and think to yourself ‘what was I thinking? It’s not such a big deal!’ and then you crack on with your morning.

So, why do we do it and what’s so different about the morning that we are no longer interested in what’s gone on before? What’s changed?

Well, I’ll tell you - one thing, and one thing only – the level of engagement, investment and belief we have in our thoughts. The above example is an extreme one (for the sake of explanation), but we are doing the exact same thing in every moment of every day – we are tuning into particular thoughts and thought patterns, and believing them to be real and/or true.

I used to wake in the night regularly and worry. Worry about money, worry about my children, my relationships and my work. At times I was absolutely gripped with anxiety, and I’d wake exhausted in the morning after losing HOURS of sleep.

At that time, I was operating under an innocent misunderstanding of how the mind really works and what creates our human experience. At that time, all my stress looked like it came from external situations, people, events etc (such as ‘I’m overdrawn again’). My thoughts would loop around and around, intensifying and gathering up all in their wake.

Then a few years ago I began to see that it wasn’t the stuff ‘out there’ that was causing me ill, but the thinking about the stuff ‘out there’. It was the looping, the analysing, the scrutiny, the mixing, the polarising, the blending, the melding, the cogitation and layering with the worry that I wouldn’t be able to function the next day which was creating my experience. As I engaged in that PROCESS, my nervous system became aroused and I accidentally filled my body with adrenaline, which is nobody’s friend when one is trying to sleep. It’s probably true to say that it became a HABIT. Wake, worry, repeat.

And then I learned that just because I had a thought, it didn’t mean a) it was true b) I had to believe it or c) needed to be afraid of my thoughts and ‘brace’ myself for an uncomfortable night. The thoughts were simply flowing through me in the moment and I innocently thought that was important.

But I learned there was an alternative available. Just seeing the thoughts flowing through my mind like radio waves and not having to ‘manage’ or ‘reframe’ or ‘figure things out’ was liberating. I began to stop the layering of worry about how I would survive the next day, which in itself was probably the most powerful insight of all. I simply began to trust that I would survive (like I had every single time it happened).

There’s another part of this which is to say that most things have a way of turning out ok, as long as we don’t interfere too much. If we see what we’re doing (layering in thought, adding thoughts, mixing thoughts, scrutinizing ideas etc), and catch ourselves in the process, it’s possible to simply stop layering in, and if not then not to take whatever thoughts come up too seriously.

Imagine our mind as a jar of beautiful clear water – pure and sparkling in its natural state. Then over the years, you’ve taken on some funky thinking, a few toxic items you’ve innocently inherited from family, teachers, society etc. Imagine those ideas (thoughts) as tiny specks of dust, dirt or sand in your mind-jar. In the middle of the night I was giving my jar a real good shake. Trying to pick out the dust, dirt and sand, but having quite the opposite effect – the more I tried to take the specks out, the more I mixed up the water.

The best way to clear the water is simply to stop shaking or mixing the jar. To leave it alone for a bit. Then in the morning, the water has cleared and we’re back to our innate state of clarity.

Have a great day!

P.S. If you can relate to the article above, and are interested in having more peaceful nights, why not listen to my FREE Clarity Audio? Download and listen now HERE.