Take the Wheel And Put Your Mind in the Back Seat Where It Belongs
I often hear people speak as if they are at the mercy of their mind – like their mind is the driver that has control of their car and they’re just a white knuckled passenger. My response is “So take the Wheel!” Just as you wouldn’t let your young child drive your car neither should you let your mind drive your life, business, relationship…. Put your mind in the backseat and allow YOURSELF to take control.
Perhaps you still make the mistake of equating your Self with your mind? However, you know you are not your mind… or your body, by virtue of referring to them in the third person and as in many meditations you (your consciousness) can observe the activity of the mind. As an example, YOU are not busy…your mind is…and often it’s busy thinking, or more accurately rearranging its prejudices, on things that are not important. But, by believing itself to be busy, it makes itself feel important. As a friend of mine once said to a group of diplomats in a meeting she was facilitating “when you stop wanting to be important, maybe some important things will get done”. I would also add that they will get done with more grace, ease and speed than you ever thought possible.
Here is a list of a few things YOU can do to help take back control of your life from your mind. They are all interconnected and provide complementary benefits, including creating periods of peaceful calm in which you can remember who you really are and why you are really here. And remember that peace and unpeace cannot exist in the same space.
Meditation and mindfulness – there are now even many apps like Headspace that make meditation simple and easy. There are many books about mindfulness and meditation but one of my favourites is Google engineer Chade-Meng Tan's book Search Inside Yourself. Recently, I began experimenting with eating meditation...Being present with my food and body as I eat instead of eating and working.
Guided heart meditations like Tony Robbins' Priming Exercise or the HeartMath Quick Coherence Technique.
Heart Rate Variability monitoring using an HRV app like HeartMath's Inner Balance.
Rhythmic breathing like the box breathing technique.
Expressing gratitude throughout your day. I just came across this cool reminder from Tim Ferriss' 5-Bullet Friday email.
Developing the habit of questioning all negative emotions, “Is this true?” “How do I know this for certain?” “Could there be another explanation?” "Is this even mine?" "How could this be different?"
There are fantastic free podcasts available on all the above subjects with expert guests hosted by people like Tim Ferriss, Dave Asprey, and Krista Tippett which are available on the web and iTunes.
If your mind is still in control of how you are experiencing your life then I hope you soon take back the wheel and enjoy the feeling of travelling along a more peaceful road.
About Rob Pilz
A financial and business creative, I love building and optimizing businesses. With a talent for creating leverage, my current passion is creating methodologies for making businesses humanly sustainable and high performing. Always looking for ways to improve the odds of business success I’ve developed a process combining reason and intuition to make better faster decisions that I call Zero Point Decision Making®. I welcome your questions or comments at my website www.robpilz.com, to my email address at rob@robpilz.com or phone +1 604-722-5361.
