Do you ever feel frozen or overwhealmed by all there is to do? I do! The result is that I resort to turning in circles, procrastinate, and engage in compulsive behaviours (yeahy compulsive BBC news consumption!)
What’s more, in those moments, my monkey mind perks up and loves nothing more than to rehash those negative self-dialogues about how I am not up to the task.
But seriously… What is more interesting: my shortcomings or my dreams and goals?
It seems like an obvious answer… so why do i spend so much time focusing on my shortcomings.
Perhaps it is because I would love to be even better… that I am perfectionist? That’s bullshit… as if I had to choose between peace of mind and self improvement or achievement. The truth is that this is one more beautiful paradox to embrace. The paradox of accepting that all is well, exactly as it is… while simultaneously journeying towards some future vision of ourselves and of what we would love to achieve.
The key here is to see that these moments are normal… all that is going on here is that we temporality entertain a conversation with our monkey mind. Monkey mind is a Buddhist term referring to that chattering internal voice that goes from worry to fear and back to worry etc. It is actually a very useful part of our ‘caveman brain’ that is here to keep us alive. The problem is that our brain has not yet adapted to modern life. It’s like we’re running modern software on a 100 000 year old computer.
So in those moments, there is no point in arguing or reasoning with monkey mind… it always wins (and sometimes resorts to the good old monkey tactic of feces flinging).
Rather, the way forward is to simply tell monkey mind ‘thank you for sharing’ (give it a hug)…. and gently shift our attention to something more interesting… to thoughts actually worth thinking. Without judgment or worry, we simply shift our attention (similarly to how during meditation we simply bring our attention back to our breath whenever our mind wanders).
So….
What would you love to focus on this week?
What would you love to focus on as you move towards your dreams and goals?!
I suggest you write this down Monday morning on your plan for the week and refer back to it whenever you smell the bananas (key sign that monkey mind is present).