The buddha once said that the mind can be likened to a monkey – restlessly, chattering, screeching, jumping from branch to branch and thought to thought which can leave us feeling confused, agitated, frazzled and stressed. On average we have between 12,000 – 70,000 thoughts per day – which equates to between 8 and 48 thoughts per minute per person. That’s a lot of thoughts and emotions in our heads clamouring for attention all day long.
Scientists estimate that as many as 98% percent of them are exactly the same as we had the day before. Fully consider it how are you feeling? Repetitively looping from the day before and the day before. And even more significant, 80% of our thoughts are negative.
We human beings are a lot like guided missiles – we move in the direction of our regular and consistent thoughts, magnetically towards what we picture in our mind – particularly what we picture with vividness and strong feeling. You get what you focus on. If you spend a lot of time focusing on what you don’t want, you will constantly sabotage your efforts and be pulled away from what it is you actually do want. So why invest any more time and energy dwelling on what you don’t want? The secret to getting what you want is to focus on what you want. To set an intention for calm, self-love, joy, happiness or whatever it is you would like more of.
The following guided visualisation has been specially created to uplift your heart, delight your mind and deeply relax your soul. It was written by Grant Soosalu and is approximately 45 mins long. So find a comfortable position where you won’t be disturbed and can sit or lie down and enjoy.
If you would like more meditations like this then check out the book mBIT Guided Journeys for the Heart, Mind and Soul by Grant Soosalu
Many people find mindful colouring to be a great way to find calmness and autonomic coherence. So why not print off the image below, find a quiet and safe space and begin by doing some balanced breathing – approximately six seconds in and six seconds out of whatever is comfortable for you. As you do so focus on breathing calm into your heart region, then up into your head and back down into your gut. Then begin colouring with a gentle focus, flow and ease – with no judgement and curiosity. Continue to breathe gently and easily as you colour. Every now and then as you colour take a moment to scan your body. Perhaps you might want to take a few minutes to go ‘meta’ on your colouring – to gaze with soft focus at what you have created and ask yourself what is the art of your art? What is it saying to you about the colours and textures you have been using? What does your heart truly feel about the drawing and your experience of it? What does your head truly think and perceive? What does your gut deeply engage with? Then soften back into the intuitive flow experience of colouring. Remember there is no right way to do this – colouring mindfully is an end in itself.
If you would like to find more drawings that have been specifically created to represents the different aspects of our multiple brains and their highest expressions (compassion, creativity and courage) then please click on the link to purchase the mBraining Colouring Book.