How to Clean Up Your Mental Mess
Afraid of negative thoughts? Don’t be! The majority of us choose to push them away rather than help them heal their wounds. What Dr. Caroline Leaf teaches about clearing up your mental clutter is that it may be really beneficial.
When asked, “Are you all right?” it seems to be a straightforward inquiry. A “yes” or a “no” is the only way to answer this question. Although it’s more often than not a “yes,” or a “no,” the answer is often neither. “Mental chaos,” as neuroscientist Dr. Caroline Leaf describes it, is a mixture of ideas and emotions that have been mixed together.
“Mental chaos,” she continues in her interview with Vishen on The Mindvalley Podcast, is defined as having a mind that is filled with poisonous ideas, despair, and anxiety that have been exacerbated by the present political situation. “
Furthermore, allowing unpleasant ideas and emotions to dwell in your head for an extended period of time might be harmful to your health. In a study conducted by the University of Reading, researchers discovered that “the longer your brain retains memories of an unpleasant event or stimulus, the unhappier you report feeling.”
In a situation when your mind is overflowing with ideas and emotions, how can you avoid the temptation to drown your sorrows in alcohol?
To begin, it’s a good idea to educate yourself on the reasons why your mind is in such a state of turmoil. Then, to assist you in clearing up your mental mess, follow the five procedures validated by research.
Your Mind Is A Mess: Why Does It Do That?
Involved in the A-Fest and her emotional turmoil
Americans are concerned about a variety of issues, including the flu epidemic, conflicts, and poverty. Another example is the rise of social media trends that encourage violence and promote a “cancelling” culture, among other things, rather than inhibiting our anxiety, despair, or tension.
Mental messes may happen to everyone at any point in their lives.
However, if you allow yourself to drink down those ideas on a daily basis without interrupting them, it might become ingrained. Dr. Joe Dispenza, a neurologist, explains that when your beliefs become a habit, they establish “automatic instructions in the brain and the body.”
The following is an excerpt from Dr. Dispenza’s conversation with Vishen: “95 percent of who we are is a condition of unconscious or subconscious programming in which we’ve done something so many times that the body can now truly execute it automatically without the conscious mind.”
Your mind is continually on the go, even while you’re preoccupied with other activities or sleeping.
Having pleasant ideas flood your head is a wonderful feeling.
Your serotonin levels rise as a result of positive thoughts and emotions, which helps to maintain your sensations of well-being and happiness. Because it allows brain cells and nervous system cells to connect with one another, this “happy hormone” has an effect on the whole body. In order to experience happiness in its entirety, you must feel it throughout your whole body.
Depression, anxiety, and tension, on the other hand, are brought on by drowning your mind in negative ideas.
In Dr. Leaf’s opinion, rather than perceiving them as diseases, we should consider them as warning signs rather than illnesses themselves.
No, they are not mental diseases, according to a large body of research — of which mine is one part — that has been done.’ You may think of them as warning signs. Accept them as you would yourself. When you accept the message, you will eventually come across the messenger.
Doctor Caroline Leaf is a neuroscientist.
If you do, cleaning up your mental messes will be much simpler. You will become more resilient to stress, and self-acceptance will be a strength you will learn to appreciate and use.
Getting Rid of Your Emotional Clutter
Those ideas of yours are really strong. This is true. And it is feasible to clean up your “mental mess” and rewire your brain so that you think more positively in the long run.
According to Dr. Leaf, who has been doing neuroscientific research at his work clinic for over a decade, “we have the ability to produce that mess.”
“It’s as soon as we create that mess, as soon as we accept it, as soon as we step back and say, ‘Oh my God, I did that.'” – That’s exactly what I did! You don’t have to worry about it. That isn’t who I am in the first place! Someone or something has provoked me, which is why I’m behaving in this manner. A good cause has been provided.’ In such phase, you may practically watch your own shambles,” says the author.
And after you’ve been able to observe and accept your mess, you may figure out what the main reason is and why it caused you to do so.
In order to begin clearing up your “mental mess,” follow these five steps:
Initial Steps: Collect information.
The only way to alter things that happen to you, whether they are emotional or physical, is to become aware of them. Because of this, paying careful attention to mental and physical warning signs is essential. Anger, resentment, despondency, heart palpitations, migraines, and other negative emotions are included in this category as well..
Reflection is the second step.
Inquire, get answers, and talk about the red flags that you saw and experienced. Consider the following:
When you reflect on something, it helps you put things into perspective while also learning, growing, appreciating, and understanding. It also redirects your attention away from how you responded and toward the idea that caused the emotion, then toward the viewpoint, and finally into the fundamental reason of your reaction.
To paraphrase Dr. Leaf, the third step is to write “Vomit your brains out on paper.” Writing not only helps you organize your ideas, but it also enables you to picture what you’re thinking about at the moment. So make a list of all you’ve learned and considered.
#4: Double-check everything.
Assume that you are in the midst of an editing session. Check your work from Step #3 to make sure everything is correct. You’ll be able to examine your poisonous ideas and responses to them, as well as contemplate the new healthy thoughts that you’d want to adopt in place of the old toxic ones.
Reaching the final destination is step five.
It’s time to put into practice all you’ve learned in the previous four stages. Everything about this project is intended to be easy and fast to execute. If you want to offer an example, you might say, “I’m scared because this event occurred and my heart is fluttering right now.” However, it is quite OK to be in this state of mind.. “That’s just how things are.”
For a total of 21 days, Dr. Leaf recommends that you do this every day. In her book, Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess, she goes into further detail about this and other strategies.
During Mindvalley U 2018 in Tallinn, Kristina Mand-Lakhiani spoke about her work.
Humans are capable of surviving for three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without oxygen… We can’t even go three seconds without thinking, as it turns out, according to research.
Even while we’re asleep, our minds are continually in “go” mode.
We should not be surprised if we are prone to drowning in our “mental chaos” in light of the present happenings.
The good news is that science has shown that our brains are considerably more capable than we give them credit for being. Fortunately, we were able to clean up the mess (all OCDers may rejoice! ).
Doctor Leaf explains that “our psycho neurobiology is built to generate a mess in an experimental fashion and then manage the mess (… ) to allow us to progress.”
Mindvalley is well-known for its ability to foster development in its clients. When you become a member of Mindvalley, you have access to the world’s top personal development instructors, including world-renowned hypnotherapy Paul McKenna, among others.
You’ll learn how to do the following things while on his Everyday Bliss Quest at Mindvalley.
Change the way you think so that you are more robust to stress Rise above your worries and anxieties.
Acquire a positive outlook and a hopeful frame of mind.
Even in the midst of pandemonium, maintain your composure and efficiency.
Improve your mental health by being more energetic, more resilient, and more tolerant of stress.
There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to toxic ideas, despair, and anxiety. While this is true, it should not be true of your happiness or enthusiasm for life.
So it’s time to tidy up the mess, get relief from tension, and live in the moment every day of your life..
Why Are You Suffering?
From citizens in war-torn nations to children dying of malnutrition to those who are trapped in their homes during this epidemic, suffering can be found all throughout the world. That feeling is hurting, that feeling is raw, that feeling is foggy… Unfortunately, it is a disease that has engulfed the all of human history. And what’s even worse is that the source of your misery is… you.
Why Do People Suffer?
Suffering is defined as the condition of being afflicted by pain, difficulty, or trouble, according to the dictionary. This is a state that we might encounter in any situation, not only in times of conflict or famine.
The following are some examples of how suffering might sound when applied to real-life circumstances:
This is pointless; I’m not capable of doing so.
Everyone will only laugh at me,” says the narrator.
Why are we doing this? “What exactly is the point?”
A Yogi’s Guide to Joy by Sadhguru, a prominent yogi and author of Mindvalley’s A Yogi’s Guide to Joy, defines suffering as “a notion in your brain or an emotion inside you [that] affects the character of your experience right now.”
The term you assign to your bad thoughts and depressing emotional conditions is, to put it simply, a label.
Is It Because We Are Human That We Suffer?
Experiencing pain is not a given. According to Sadhguru, “people are capable of suffering through almost anything.” They are suffering whether they are well or sick, whether they are alone or in a group, whether they are affluent or impoverished, and even whether they are in comfort or pain, according to the research.
It is clear that humans are causing pain.
“The foundation of suffering is attachment,” the Buddha famously said. You provide meaning to every experience you have in life (whether it’s a relationship or the items we purchase), and you do this with every memory you have. As an example, consider:
It was a jerk who cut you off on the side of the road.
It’s not good that your small child is having a meltdown.
A telemarketer phoned in the midst of your meeting – he must have been incompetent or something like that, you think.
As Morty Lefkoe, inventor of The Lefkoe Method, argues in his TEDx Talk on how to end suffering, “Meaning is what we believe we know for certain about any event or group of events.” Indeed, what we perceive as meaning is really one point of view based on an arbitrary interpretation that we apply to a particular occurrence.”
It is a fact of life that every one occurrence may have a variety of interpretations. In your imaginations, however, the only ones who exist are the ones who are familiar to you. And your mind provides emotional explanations for these meanings – whether they are positive, negative, sucky, wonderful, or whatever.
For example, the person who cut you off is most likely neither a jerk or a douchebag. He may be in a hurry to go to the hospital where his expectant wife is giving birth.. Alternatively, your young girl isn’t awful, but she’s simply starved for attention. Alternatively, the telemarketer is not foolish; rather, he is only attempting to make a livelihood in order to provide for his or her family members.
You are the one who determines the nature of goodness and what you consider to be goodness.
“When you ascribe significance to events in your life, it generates upset and suffering in practically every aspect of your life,” says the Sadhguru of Mindvalley, a yogi and humanitarian who is also the author of A Yogi’s Guide to Joy Morty (Mindvalley, 2009). It may be time to rewrite the script on the meanings we assign to our situations, especially in light of recent reports that more Americans are dissatisfied than they have been in over 50 years.
The Question Is: How Do You Stop Suffering?
“If you have the ability to cause misery, don’t you think you have the ability to create something else?” asks Sadhguru.
Overall, your attitude is critical.
It is possible that you may suffer if you allow your mind to assign significance to your events. Nevertheless, when you allow your mind to disintegrate that meaning, you will be able to triumph over your troubles.
Bring it back to the gentleman who cut you off on the highway. Tell yourself he isn’t a jerk and that he may have been late to his child’s birth because of unforeseen circumstances… maybe because he has irritable bowel syndrome and has to relieve himself… Alternatively, he may have just missed you… Afterwards, your anger, along with all of the misery that goes along with it, will subside.
If you’re able to build anything for a brief period of time, you may be able to create a sensation of liberation from pain for a little period of time…
What makes you think that you can’t create another moment if you only create one? Isn’t it possible for you to make a second? How about one more and one more, please? That is the method through which you build your life: via thought.
You may live happily if you learn the art of making your times delightful, according to the yogi’s teachings: Sadhguru, I bow my head. Namaste.
The difference between dissolving the meaning of something and suppressing your feelings is unclear.
When you suppress your sentiments, you are ignoring them or pushing them to the back of your mind. As a result, you are unable to acknowledge that you are experiencing true emotions.
As an example, you could get enraged if a driver cuts you off on the highway. However, although it may seem that you are suppressing your wrath, that sensation of fury is still very much alive. Moreover, it will continue to exist unless you take action to resolve the problem.
When you dissolve the meaning, on the other hand, you are also laying to rest the emotion that was associated with the meaning.. For example, you persuade yourself that the man had to pee a lot and that you understand how it feels, so you excuse him. The meaning fades away, the emotion vanishes, and there’s nothing left to hide or conceal.
The basic line is that altering your perspective is necessary for dissolving meaning. Your sorrow is transformed into an opportunity for progress by this method.
Reclaim Your Authority..
It is not in the nature of humans to suffer, particularly on a daily basis, contrary to popular belief.
Consequently, don’t ever think that you are the cause of your own misery! There are always ways to challenge the current quo of society’s “brules,” to transcend your own beliefs, and to become a better version of your own self-image.
It is only when you take your suffering and find out the stand it will offer you and how to use it into your life goal that the pain is no longer there.
