I think a major problem with modern society as whole is we believe if our mind is not thinking some thought we are not really alive. This belief causes many ails like anxiety (thinking about the future) or bitterness and regret (thinking about the past). It is very challenging, to the untrained mind, to literally stop thinking and just be.
In my personal experience, what triggered this inner development away from constant thought-chatter derived from what was at face value, a negative experience. In my late teen’s I was diagnosed with clinical depression. An ever-present heavy negative emotion was felt in my body all hours of the day for years. It was debilitating. I truly did not want to live so I could escape these terrible emotions. No amount of positive thinking was helping me.
All of this changed when two things happened.
- I started meditating for 20 – 40 minutes every day.
- I read The Power Of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Meditation forced my consciousness to sit with how I felt at the time of the meditation. It was a powerful practice. I became more and more aware of how my mind worked and how my body felt.
The Power Of Now taught me how mush wisdom resides in the present moment. Human’s spend so much of their lives thinking. Trapped in endless thought loops. We think about how a co-worker reacted to us which triggers a taught of their parents reacting in a similar way when they were a kid which triggers a thought about a childhood friend which triggers a thought about a game they played with that childhood friend. So on and on and on and on. The thinking never stops.
What are we missing out on if we’re always thinking? Life – that’s what we’re missing out on.
When we constantly think and think and think we are living in our minds. This is such a restricted way to live. Constant thought chatter prevents us from enjoying the present moment. It prevents us from any forces of inspiration. Constantly thinking cuts us off from the universe’s life force that flows through everything in existence.
The thinking spirals into more thought chatter. Many human’s spend their entire life thinking and miss out on life!