3204: How To Instantly Calm A Restless Mind by Richard Paterson of Think Less And Grow Rich on Meditation

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[00:01:37] from Optimal Living Daily. This is Optimal Living Daily episode 3204, How to Instantly Calm a

[00:01:45] Restless Mind, by Richard Patterson of ThinkLessAndGrowRich.com. And I'm Justin Mollick,

[00:01:51] your very own personal narrator. Hello old friend. I'm not calling you old. Old stands for Optimal

[00:01:57] Living Daily, OLD. And this is where I narrate the best blogs I can get permission from for you. So

[00:02:03] on that note, let's get right to another post and start optimizing your life. How to Instantly Calm

[00:02:13] a Restless Mind, by Richard Patterson of ThinkLessAndGrowRich.com.

[00:02:20] You suffer not because the mind is restless, but because you believe it shouldn't be. Everybody

[00:02:27] has a restless mind. Everyone without exception. It couldn't be any other way. The Indian spiritual

[00:02:34] teacher Nisargadatta sums up the nature of the mind in the following statement, quote,

[00:02:40] There's no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance. Restlessness itself is mind,

[00:02:48] end quote. The mind is restlessness. Not only is there nothing wrong with the mind being restless,

[00:02:55] chaotic, messed up, it couldn't be any other way. Mind means disturbance. Expecting the mind to be

[00:03:02] still and peaceful is like expecting the grass to be pink or expecting water to be dry. Here's

[00:03:08] the key point. Having a restless mind isn't the main issue. We suffer because we believe there's

[00:03:15] something wrong with the way the mind is. You suffer not because the mind is restless, but

[00:03:20] because you believe it shouldn't be. Seeing this can be life-changing. Most people believe they

[00:03:26] need to fix or change the mind in order to experience peace. I recently had a coaching

[00:03:31] client, let's call her Mary, who had been trying to fix what she perceived to be her broken mind

[00:03:37] for years. Like myself in the past, she had spent years going to therapy, reading every self-help

[00:03:43] book she could get her hands on, attending every seminar and workshop, all because she believed

[00:03:48] the mind needed to be a certain way in order to experience peace. And like myself, she had never

[00:03:55] considered the possibility that the mind itself is not the problem, rather the way we relate to it.

[00:04:02] When she grasped the concept of making peace with her restless mind, her experience was transformed

[00:04:08] in an instant. She saw clearly that peace is available right now no matter what is going on

[00:04:14] in the mind. Peace of mind versus peace with mind. As Nisargadatta said, quote,

[00:04:22] there's no such thing as peace of mind. Mind means disturbance. Restlessness itself is mind, end quote.

[00:04:30] Most people are looking for peace of mind. They believe, as I also did for years, that experiencing

[00:04:36] peace is the result of having peaceful thoughts. If you suffer from fear, anxiety, depression, or low

[00:04:44] self-esteem, you will know how hard it is to shake these thoughts off, let alone transform them into

[00:04:50] still, quiet, peaceful thoughts. You could literally spend the rest of your life waiting for peace to

[00:04:57] happen, and many people do. There's another far simpler way that requires no fixing and no time.

[00:05:05] Make peace with the fact that the mind is restless. Expect it to be restless, chaotic, neurotic,

[00:05:13] and anxious. See that the mind is just being its restless self. There's nothing wrong unless you

[00:05:19] believe there is. You'll experience peace to the degree that you're able to accept the mind just as

[00:05:26] it is, to leave it in peace, to do its crazy dance. Here's a quote from my book Kick the Thinking Habit,

[00:05:34] quote, don't be concerned about the thoughts that come and go. Leave them alone and they'll

[00:05:39] leave you alone. Leave the mind in peace to do its dance and it'll leave you in peace to do yours.

[00:05:44] Don't touch it at all and you'll remain untouched by it, end quote. Don't fire the second arrow.

[00:05:53] The Buddhists use the expression second arrow to describe how most people unconsciously react

[00:05:59] to challenging thoughts. Let's use anxiety as an example. An anxious thought or feeling appears

[00:06:05] by itself in your awareness. The first arrow is self-arising. You don't choose it. The anxious

[00:06:11] thought then produces an automatic unconscious reaction. This is bad, this is wrong, I shouldn't

[00:06:18] be feeling this, there's something wrong with me, I need to get rid of it, I can't live like this,

[00:06:23] I'm a bad person. This is the second arrow. The vast majority of our suffering comes not from

[00:06:30] the original thought but from the subsequent commentary about it. The more we resist,

[00:06:37] the more we suffer. Imagine if you were to welcome the thought or feeling into your experience

[00:06:41] instead, recognizing that it is just the mind doing its thing, recognizing that it doesn't mean

[00:06:47] there's anything wrong with you. This is what is meant by making peace with the mind. It may still

[00:06:53] feel unpleasant, but when you relax and subtract the notion that there's something wrong, most of

[00:06:59] the suffering vanishes. This is what the Buddhists mean by pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

[00:07:06] The mind is restless, neurotic, crazy, and that's okay even if it doesn't feel good.

[00:07:13] The best way to tame an angry bull. This is one of my favorite analogies for dealing with a

[00:07:19] restless and troublesome mind. Let's say you find yourself confined in a small space with an angry

[00:07:24] bull kicking and snorting, not unlike being trapped inside your head with a restless and neurotic

[00:07:30] mind. Here's the worst thing you can do in this scenario. You could try to fight him, to force him

[00:07:35] into a tiny enclosure and tie him up. The more you fight and resist him, the angrier and more

[00:07:41] unmanageable he becomes. So what's the best solution? Set him free. Give him a huge open

[00:07:48] field to run around in. Meeting with no resistance, he will quickly run out of steam and settle down.

[00:07:55] Leave him alone for five minutes and he'll be happily grazing. So how does this apply to the

[00:08:00] restless mind? Let it be restless. Don't resist it. Don't fight it. Don't try to control it.

[00:08:07] Let it run free in the vast field of your awareness. Meeting no resistance there,

[00:08:11] it will soon settle down. And even if it doesn't, in the absence of judgment, it's okay for it to

[00:08:17] be there. It is far better to encounter a bull at a vast open space than in a tight confined one.

[00:08:24] It's the same with the mind. I remember a time when my thoughts were so intense,

[00:08:29] they felt like they were glued to my face like a tight ski mask. Maybe you can relate. There was

[00:08:34] no space between me and the thoughts. Like the bull in the small enclosure, they took up all

[00:08:40] the space. As you learn more and more to step back and let the mind do its thing without resistance,

[00:08:46] without getting involved, you begin to meet your thoughts in a larger arena. You realize

[00:08:53] that the mind's little dramas only take up a small space in the totality of who you are.

[00:09:03] You just listened to the post titled, How to Instantly Calm a Restless Mind by Richard

[00:09:09] Patterson of thinklessandgrowrich.com and I'll be right back with my commentary.

[00:09:14] There's a quote in there that I think bears repeating. Richard said,

[00:09:19] The vast majority of our suffering comes not from the original thought, but from the subsequent

[00:09:24] commentary about it. That's the source of our suffering, the labels and commentary we make

[00:09:30] about thoughts, not the actual thoughts themselves. Weird random things pop into our heads all the

[00:09:36] time, even when we're sleeping. Those are dreams, often bizarre, random images, sometimes for the

[00:09:42] purpose of preparing ourselves for the worst, but often what seems to be total nonsense. And do we

[00:09:49] then take that dream and bash ourselves for it or dwell on it? I hope not. It's because those dreams

[00:09:55] are mostly out of our control. I say mostly because if you can have lucid dreams, then your

[00:10:01] dreams are in your control, but only for a little while and it's back to not being in your control

[00:10:06] anymore. For more on lucid dreaming, you can check out one of the rare episodes where I narrated my

[00:10:11] own content way back in episode 50. But anyway, that was a big tangent. We generally don't wake

[00:10:17] up from a nightmare or weird dream and then assign like a bad label to it and judge ourselves or dwell

[00:10:24] on it. The dream will usually be gone from our memories pretty quickly. We won't even remember it

[00:10:29] and so should unhelpful or negative thoughts. Letting them exist and then gently move on is a

[00:10:36] real simple solution to many of our biggest problems. So if you haven't thought about this

[00:10:40] much, I'd definitely consider putting some more thought into this idea because like Richard said

[00:10:46] in his words, seeing this can be life-changing. I'll leave it there for today. Hope you're having

[00:10:52] a great morning, afternoon, or evening whenever you're listening to this and I'll see you tomorrow

[00:10:57] where your optimal life awaits.