Mind Over Matter: The Meditation Club

Good one.
My husband always tells me this story - not thinking of monkey when taking medicine.

Sheltering at home from Florence who is howling outside, I thought I will check here for a few minutes.

Can you give me some tips on how to control the negative reactions?
Right now my strategy is placing everything at God's feet.

However, after any negative incident it takes time to come to terms that nothing is in my hands.
The initial few seconds, minutes, hours - I react, in my mind of course.

For example when my character was assassinated a few days ago I felt sad. However, it took me a few hours to come to terms with it. I thought "its ok. Even God manifests Himself in so many forms; I, a mere human being appears to that person as such."

But it took me a fe hours of rumination.

I would like to get out of that rumination period.
Do you practice any methods to overcome the initial reaction?

Guess I am asking for instant-gratification-of-the emotions- of sorts.

 

I take technology help for my meditatation...I have isochronic/binsural beats downloaded in my mobile and use to listen while travel and during office work before computer...they are good for brainwave entrainment and you can sense vibration in tantien, 3rd eye etc. I also listen to Deepak chopra meditation audios one on chakra balancing and the other on ancient rig vedic sutras are good..Alan Watts what is meditation audio is also good...finally the thing that I like the most is a software called Mind stereo...this software helps to play your regular audio along with brainwave entrainment...meaning I can listen to regular songs or audio books still use them to entrain brainwave...

 

Hi Kamala,

I hope you are remaining safe from the nature's wheel. I am sure the universal solution is surrender at the feet of the Lord. But I always question my ability to do so because of various other attributes I have. Therefore, I have one long-term solution and one short-term solution to reduce the rumination period to get out of negative reactions. I know it works for me because of certain negative qualities I have, that I need to get rid of. But I am not sure whether it would for everyone.

The long-term solution is called "ACE"

Acceptance - I just accept the situation as is as something I am destined to face for a reason that is unknown.
Cooperation - I do everything to rationalize what was said or did quickly so that I can overcome the strain of facing negative reaction for long.
Envision - After rationalizing, I feel the future possibilities or visualize how the lessons learned would let me grow and develop

The short-term solution is called "SCALE"

Sensitivity - Watch my level of sensitivity on each such occasion
Castigation - Watch my own castigation in an argument that bites me
Analysis - Watch how much I think what was said or did
Listening/Learning - Watch how much I listened/learned
Energy - Watch how much energy is used up to such negative reactions

Exercising, walking, running, watching nature, serving someone with love, playing with a baby or pet, etc. are extremely helpful to overcome the negative reactions.

 

Thank you @Viswamitra
I am very safe. Did not affect me at all.
My heart goes out to those who have lost everything. Praying for their recovery.

Thank you for taking the time to write clearly the short term and long term solutions.

The two from your list that I currently practice are the "A" in Analysis and "E" in Energy.

• I stop short of over analysis.

I find that the more I analyze the situation begins to appear bigger than it really is. So it ends up all in my mind only.
So nowadays I stop over analyzing and that has helped me a lot. ​

• In the process of over analyzing I also realized I spend too much energy in an unfruitful and unnecessary exercise which is only making the situation worse for me, rather , appears to grow worse.

I will start applying the other tips you have provided. The Sensitivity part is going to be the toughest.

 

I follow this method, I think that all the negative emotions , and thoughts due to certain incident move out from my brain and comes out through the spinal cord in the form of smoke . This helps me develop little peace of mind after a bad day.

 

Thank you @sindmani .
Am going to work on myself towards attaining that goal.

 

Many of us talk about getting into a zone when we do something passionately with full concentration and devotion to what we do. The command center in us let us focus on doing it so skillfully optimizing the performance, lovingly with great devotion to the work performed and selflessly considering the work performed bigger than us. That is when our mind surrenders its power to gratify itself and focus on the work performed and it is in a way peak of meditative state of mind. That is when the full potential and power of NOW is realized. Me and Mine disappear in thin air. That enjoyment gets bigger than name, fame and praise that the mind enjoys.

Now, let us get to the difficult part. Being in a zone happens once in a while when the mind surrenders its tendency to gratify itself and vast majority of the time it is looking for self-gratification. We know the mind tricks itself to surrender only when it believes in a particular skill-set. It could be deep research, observing nature, reading something interesting, singing, dancing, running, exercising, specific work, etc.

How do we let our mind believe that everything we do is a step to get into a zone and for its ultimate enjoyment? For that, we need to train our mind to develop concentration and contemplation on everything we do which will lead to meditation. Preparing the mind to get intoxicated with that enjoyment all the time is the best way to fight our ego. The mind shouldn't be allowed to choose its likes and dislikes about work. It is hard but not impossible. When the mind enjoys the zone, the whole system reverberates with that vibration making life meaningful.

Viswa

 

@Gauri03,

Thank you for sharing great insight into how to distance ourselves from our mind's reaction to an event that is out of our control. "That's none of my concern" works for me too. One other thing that I tried and worked is a mantra called, "I give, what I don't get". When I feel someone is not kind to me or those I expect to love me, don't love, then, I try to be kind to someone else or an animal and give unconditional love to that someone or an animal. My mind rationalizes quickly my action of kindness and love as normal and what happened to me from someone else is not normal (one off situation) and is not worth evaluating.

 

Dear Viswa uncle,

This post of yours hit me at the right point. I always believed in doing our best in everything we do. However, I did have some few favorite activities which gave me more joy than others. But, today you taught me that we need to achieve this state of joy in each and everything we do. It is a great lesson uncle and it has opened something in me. T

Thank you so much for creating this awareness uncle.
Vani