How I quieten my mind from the non-stop chatter?

Involuntary Thoughts

As per latest estimates by psychologists, on average our mind produces 6200 involuntary thoughts per day. Some Social Psychologists in the past even put out figures as high as 80000 thoughts per day. It means there is a constant chatter in our monkey mind that keeps us jumping from one thought to another — pretty much in the same manner as a monkey jumping from branch to branch and making noise all the time.

Need For Peaceful Mind

Since these are mostly involuntary thoughts, our mind digs events of the past that are mostly unpleasant experiences and thus create negative emotions. These negative emotions give rise to further negative thoughts and slowly our behavior starts changing. This in turn changes our personality from a happy and positive person to a depressed, pessimistic and negative person.

Based on negative past experiences, our mind also starts weaving what-if scenarios mostly projecting the future as a doomsday. The result is constant anxiety and fear of the future. We start operating in a survival mode — fight or flight scenario! This is a trap where we are in a constant state of flux between negative past and anxious future.

In the process we are unable to place our attention on the present. Present is where all the creation happens. Therefore it is important that we keep our mind free from this constant chatter. It’s not possible however to wish your mind away in an instant. But it is possible to achieve a gradual control on our mind. In the beginning those control periods will be very brief and we shall slide into the chatter again. However, with conscious effort, we can increase that period of bliss gradually.

I do it in the following steps;

1. I watch my thoughts or “watch the thinker” as Eckhart Tolle describes the mind in his bestseller “The Power Of Now’. I do this exercise from time to time throughout the day. Since covid19 has affected businesses very badly, cash flows haunt on the day to day basis. However, I know it fully well that there are things I can’t do anything about today. So once I become aware of the thoughts related to those issues…
2. I break the circle of thoughts through a one minute breathing meditation. I take a deep breath, hold it and count till 20 and then exhale slowly. The moment I inhale and hold, the thought cycle breaks immediately and exhaling provides a wonderful relaxation. I repeat it 3 times.
3. My next step is to take immediate action on something important. This action is something that takes me in a state of flow. In my case, it’s writing on topics that I care about and plan to make them vehicles in my career. In other words, I am creating content around those topics. They are not urgent, but I consider them extremely important. Late Stephen Covey has distinguished very well Important from Urgent in his book “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”., Usually important things are not urgent and similarly urgent might not necessarily be important. In my Laptop, at any point in time, there are 2–3 open documents that are work-in-progress. So during the 3rd breathing while holding the breath, instead of counting, I determine which topic I shall start writing on. As I start the deep work, and get immersed, I get into a flow state and for the next 90 minutes, I am working non-stop on the topic. I have internalized the understanding that if I cannot do anything about some pressing issue or problem, I should focus my attention on something that I can do about at this present moment. This has helped me maintain my sanity at very difficult and painful moments. The added advantages are two;
4. I get to generate content while silencing the monkey mind
5. Silent mind creates the space for deliberate thinking and I can come up with a better and creative solution to the problem at hand.

Try and see if these steps work for you. In the action step, find out what works best for you to get into flow state. If you suffer from attention deficit and find it difficult to focus for longer periods of time on the tasks at hand, I recommend you to read “Deep Work” by Cal Newport.