Freedom Of The Mind

How can you live free of your thoughts?

Can you instead clearly express the voice and wisdom of your heart?

This episode is to help you practice living in the present moment,

To liberate yourself from old patterns of thinking and believing,

To choose new thoughts,

And a mantra to remind you of how you want to experience yourself,

And to know how much you can enjoy each moment without the distractions of the mind.

I'm going to open this with a prayer mantra.

Yes,

A prayer mantra.

So prayer mantras are my own little creation.

They are a series of words written in the form of a prayer that helps give you inspiration and hope and also clarity for asking for what you want.

In my greatest self-expression,

I am present.

Present to the beauty before me.

Present to my life.

Present to the foreshadowing of my greatness.

Present to the wonder and victory that I live in the serenity of what I know now,

And what arrives next.

To practice true detachment from your thoughts is to recognize,

To be aware when the thoughts you hold are creating discomfort and undesirable feelings.

Anxiety is certainly a common feeling state,

As is fear and sadness,

Feeling overwhelmed and also hopeless.

Being attentive of how you feel is a cue,

Actually,

That you are awake and aware,

And that you can make another choice.

You don't have to continue in how you feel.

One of the biggest learnings is that our feelings are an indication of what we tell ourselves.

They are static and changeable,

And we control this by what we choose to think and believe.

When you feel any unpleasant feelings,

You can practice deliberate conscious,

What I call freedom of the mind.

Freedom begins with conscious free will choice.

This is something that we all have.

With this awareness,

Then and in the very next moment,

You can choose to release your thoughts,

To detach from them,

Which,

If you notice,

Your thoughts are most likely about something that is not accurate nor true,

Rather an imagined fear or a worst case scenario,

And something that is of course not wanted.

Even a thought that is true can be re-scripted to what is still true and yet reassuring,

Neutral,

Hopeful.

As a cognitive therapist and someone who works in private practice with clients,

These cognitive tools and principles are among the most powerful ways of freeing your mind and for choosing the thoughts that you want to hold,

That empower,

Uplift,

Encourage,

And reaffirm all that is possible.

I share three of the very best strategies for freeing the mind of holding inspired thoughts of another worldly nature.

Thoughts of love and happiness and the creating of abundance,

Which are also thoughts that inform us of how we are co-creating our lives moment by moment.

So first,

Let's talk about the practice of meditation.

In meditation,

We practice the freedom to let go,

To notice thoughts,

And yet to remain present to each singular moment as it unfolds in front of us and through us,

And to take in this moment and the next and the next.

We put aside our work and our worldly pleasures for a time to rest our body and our eyes or fixate on a point of focus,

And we let go.

We willingly surrender for moments at a time as we choose to live in the present.

And if you struggle during meditation,

It is only this.

It is learning the practice of attending to now,

Of being one moment at a time.

Here is something you can do that takes only five minutes,

Although you may want to enjoy it for longer.

It's a simple practice that I've begun doing for myself,

And it's truly remarkable.

You set a timer.

This becomes a pause for you to live in the present moment,

To shed all thoughts,

To let go of everything before now,

And to be.

This is actually a form of meditation.

Practice meditation unguided in this way,

And observe your mental clarity return and observe your calm,

Observe presence in now.

You may focus on a sound you hear in the room or simply the practice of quiet,

Of stillness,

Of being.

Your mind will follow your lead,

And as the thoughts of the mind fall away,

You are left with the presence of now and this moment.

This is the space of eternity.

This is the calm that you are able to access by choice.

This is how you learn to hold space for being.

And the more that you practice this stepping away for five minutes to breathe and be and feel and notice,

The easier it becomes to return to a place of calm and peace by choice.

I might call this the five minute mini break.

Maybe you have a better name,

Let me know in the comments.

As you choose to include this type of deliberate practice throughout your day to release thoughts on purpose,

To be present in now,

To reset the mind in stillness.

As you live aware and awake,

This is how you liberate yourself from the mind.

It is how you show up in the conscious form of being,

Of nourishing the present and yourself.

When you return to your work or a task or a phone call that you need to make,

Notice that the mind is clear.

The attention you give what you do is typically laser focused,

And it becomes easeful to remain alert and aware in a balanced state of emotion.

This is a practice,

Remember,

So give it some practice before you decide if it's working or not.

But believe me,

It's a beautiful practice that's free and easy,

And it works.

You just need to use it.

The practice of Aparigraha reminds us to let go,

To detach,

To free ourselves from the mind's constant thinking,

And to instead walk through life with the ease and freedom of presence whilst continuing to care deeply and enjoy fully.

Aparigraha is the Sanskrit word and the fifth of five yamas of the Yoga Sutras.

The Yoga Sutras are an ancient scripture written as moral code and law and commandments,

As guidance for living life.

These sutras written in 200 BCE are among the most beautiful spiritual teachings for how best to move through life with grace and love and of the highest good.

Regardless of the religious or spiritual beliefs you hold,

It's well worth a read of the Yoga Sutras.

If you were to embrace the practice of Aparigraha as a way of living life,

Its teachings remind us to appreciate,

To enjoy the momentum of abundance,

To engage fully in life and all that we desire,

And without the distraction of greed,

Clingingness,

Grasping,

Coveting,

And unhealthy attachments or vices such as addictions and dependencies.

How can we enjoy life to the fullest in each sacred moment?

To have freedom of mind that is inspired from our consistent ability to choose our thoughts or to choose the absence of thinking.

Meditation is one tool and best practice for this.

Another mindful tool and best practice is to notice the ease of our breath and to return to the breath as your point of focus often and only this.

Breathing is a form of meditation.

It is a tool for mindfulness and also curiosity and self-discovery and of being aware in and of the present moment.

Just like the breath gives us nourishment,

So does life.

You may want to ask yourself,

Do you allow yourself to witness life fully?

To be present in the moments of your life and to move through the moments of your day in a pure state of awareness.

When you practice focusing on your breath,

It's one way to calm the body.

It engages the vagus nerve,

Which is responsible for shifting us from our sympathetic nervous system to our parasympathetic nervous system,

Which is the relaxation response of the body.

So in that five minutes,

If you were to move your chair away from your desk or just stop what you were doing and take those five minutes to be,

To close your eyes,

To allow yourself the space and time to exist in the present,

If you also included a practice of holding attention onto your breath for that same four or five minute time length,

You would notice a beautiful release of whatever uncomfortable,

Unwanted emotions you were experiencing.

And to stay with your breath,

To hold presence in now,

Is what allows you to free your mind,

To free yourself to experience,

Once again,

The present moment.

It's entirely possible to live in a state of awareness and to do so far more of the time.

In fact,

When you find yourself mired in thoughts that cause you to feel anxious,

Afraid,

Discouraged,

Guilty,

Resentful,

Hopeless,

These are human constructs of thought and not what is really true and before you.

This is where the practice of cognitive therapy and the tools that we use together are helpful for challenging the thoughts that cause your suffering.

To hold inspiring thoughts,

For example,

Is to say,

How can I be kind and gentle and loving to myself?

How can I hold a mantra that easily fires up the inspiration that I need to do what I want or need or desire?

I'm going to leave these two questions also for you in the description.

They are definitely worth remembering and using.

This third best practice I'm referring to is to recognize that your thoughts hold the key to how you feel,

And therefore,

To change how you feel,

You must begin with a new thought or thoughts.

A hint here is to ask yourself,

How do I want to feel?

And remember that the energy of your thoughts carry the vibration of how you feel.

When you connect with and to your inner source of joy,

You become accountable to yourself for what you need.

This is the best way that we can be reminded of our ability to generate compassion and love,

Freedom of the mind,

And instead,

The willingness to believe,

To believe in our capacity for inspiring thoughts,

And the revelation that joy is the perfect example of accountability to our worldly nature.

Joy is the perfect expression of the co-creation of abundance.

You experience the wisdom of the present moment each time you choose to live in joy,

To allow joy into your heart and to rule the thoughts you think.

So you can see that there are several beautiful examples of how the miracle of the present is your freedom.

You choose in each new moment what thoughts you hold,

What thoughts express the kindest moments that you will live,

And in the path,

The outcome of all of this,

We can revel in our ability to choose,

To bring to light the life we want to live,

And to do this again and repeatedly.

The journey of the present moment,

Which is the life of wonder that you choose,

It's within your reach.

You hold freedom in responsibility,

Responsibility to live in the grace and wonder of your heart.

It is all here and for you.

The measure that you hold,

The endless joy that you are in search of,

All of this exists here and in the space of now,

In the choice you claim,

In the fearless governance to live according to all that you seek,

And all that is in your heart and before you.

I want you to create your list of inspiring thoughts,

Thoughts that bring to life the true potential of what you want,

And often what is already before you.

The practice of joy,

The means by which you live unstoppable,

Is the language of your heart in emergence with you.

Just remember,

You have everything that you need.

The thoughts and actions that move you in all of life's perfect wonder may include any of this list,

And I invite you to create more of these sentence stems.

They're perfect journal tools,

And they definitely help you to change the way you think,

To free yourself from what is not serving you.

Here they are.

I am.

I feel.

I am choosing.

I am free to,

And I am happy because.

And there's so many more you can create that'll help you think and feel the way you truly want to.

Be aware of your thoughts without attaching to them.

Instead,

Hold presence in your heart,

And practice drawing from this source of wisdom more of the time,

And to live more in the present moment.

And if you need practice in trusting the wisdom that is here in your heart,

Practice being still.

Practice feeling your way to what is right for you in this moment.

We live from our heart and our infinite state in childhood instinctively.

Now to practice this learned skill to make it a part of us again.

And if you would like my help,

You can always reach out to me.

Thank you so much for listening.

This is Dorothy Sonore Cuno.

Namaste.