De-cluttering our minds and creating calm

As you know, I am a great believer in putting into place a structured morning routine which will sustain you throughout your day. The first thing that I do each and every day is meditate. This period of my day is where I set up my mind as quiet, clear, focused and neutral. And if I do this right, then I can maintain this setting throughout my day so that when things which might easily unsettle me come my way, I can maintain my equilibrium very easily and make clearer judgements, more balanced decisions and move through the situation more quickly and relatively unscathed on an emotional level. I then don’t have to think about the situation again, try to make sense of it either in my own mind or by speaking to others about it. This clarity is invaluable to me and keeps me focused on the now. If you haven’t read it by the way, Eckhart Tolle’s ‘The Power of Now’ is an absolutely must and if you have read it but haven’t completely grasped what he said, then I would reread it as soon as possible.

This clarity of mind is invaluable to us all and yet, even those of us who are rigorously following our routines and meditating on a regular basis still suffer from an overload of bad quality thoughts at times and, as we are moving out of the lockdown (albeit slowly) here in the UK, we have had a winter of isolation and a gut load of negative thoughts and insecurities. As the season of spring is a form of new year, a time of rebirth for nature, it is time for us to turn to our second one of the year. Last week I dealt with de-cluttering our lives externally, and now I am turning to the de-cluttering of the mind.

Why do I need to declutter my mind?

Decluttering the mind is essential because we don’t focus only on what we want. We tend to focus on what is in front of us and give it our full attention. This means that our minds are susceptible to picking any old rubbish up as we go along. We don’t filter what we focus on and our minds gather up what’s in front of it and starts thinking by itself so to speak. Decluttering the mind means getting rid of these bad quality thoughts.

What are bad quality thoughts?

Bad quality thoughts are thoughts which are detrimental to our well-being. We might have a conversation with someone who tells us a story about something dramatic – I want to keep away from specific examples for obvious reasons – but suffice to say that this is not a great story. What does our mind do with it once we know this story, it starts linking this story with others that we know about and our mind, the wonderful analytical tool it is, finds patterns and expands on our knowledge by referring to our data bank and very soon we are thinking more and more on this topic. Bearing in mind that this is a dramatic topic, our mind easily affects our emotions and we start feeling fearful, insecure, unsafe, worried and so on. Our mind is literally telling our emotions and therefore our bodies that we are not safe and there we have it. Bad quality thoughts which move us away from our happier, more relaxed selves. Bad quality thoughts destroy our peace of mind. We are interested in building it.

Where do I pick up my bad quality thinking and what can I do about it?

We all know that the news is not just news, it’s bad news. So I tend to avoid that as much as I can and this habit has been especially helpful during the last year – yes, a whole year! My ignorance of exactly what is going on out there is the world has helped me and therefore everyone around me, to maintain their balance in their view of what is going on in the world and therefore in our own lives. It helps maintain perspective.

The other place we can really pick up bad quality thoughts, by which I mean fears and worried For the first time for many, many years, I am watching TV. I mean actual TV and it’s awful. Not the programmes, I have chosen to watch the programme and I enjoy whatever it is for that reason. It’s the adverts. You would think that the adverts were selling illness to us, the way that they are worded. I have become more conscious of my own mortality, as have we all, because of the Coronavirus but this can be made so much worse by the adverts.

Try your best to limit the amount of information that you are taking in generally and this also means setting limits on how much social media you consume. This is also a great bad quality thought generator and once you have that first bad quality thought, your mind will, as you scroll, look for more and more of the same type of things, it’s a bit like the google algorithm, it will keep focusing on more and more of what you give it. I have taken to watching comedy clips when I go on Facebook so I am getting more and more of those which is really fun.

So, we need to limit how much dross we ingest but there is more great advice to keep the mind uncluttered..

Use your autopilot

When it comes to routine tasks or decisions, set yourself to autopilot. Many, many very successful entrepreneurs wear the same thing every day so that they don’t have to be distracted by what to wear. Some people eat the very same breakfast every day so that they don’t have to make any decisions as to what to prepare for themselves. There are loads and loads of these kind of decisions what can free up space and time in your mind so that you can spend more time focusing on what you want and what is fun about your life and thereby generate more and more good quality thoughts.

Prioritise

Always use prioritising as a tool. I have a rolling to do list – let’s face it, there is always something we need to do – and I go through it again and again throughout the day, moving things around on there so that when next I open it, I am right where I need to be. That’s my day sorted so no more pondering on what I should or shouldn’t be doing, I can just get on with it. This really helps with procrastination too!

Writing

Writing a to do list is great but also writing things down in a journal is a great way of letting them go if there is something that you are holding onto. Usually, when we are holding onto something, it’s from the past and writing down what’s bothering us can really help. So can forgiveness. If we are focused on the past too much, there is something that we haven’t resolved and often there is a process that we can use to deal with this. It’s so important to really accept that the past cannot be changed and that we must not let it clutter our minds and our hearts. I will write more on this next week.

Remember, you are not alone!

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