Have you listened recently to your internal dialogue? To the sinister messages, rageful thoughts, scary impulses within? If you're honest with yourself the media reporting the destruction of our world is nothing compared to the primitive, ongoing assessment of all the imagined and real dangers we face out there. On a daily, hourly basis, we sense powerful negative body sensations within us that we then label a specific emotion and explain with a narrative (thoughts with a storyline about what that emotion is and what caused it or, most often,
who caused it. We react to other peoples' actions or absence of actions. But we often save the worst condemnation and harshest story for our own failings, weaknesses, and imperfections.
Step 1: A body sensation manifests and we become aware of it.
Step 2; We may then label it a specific emotion or simply react to it without being fully aware
of its nature.
Step 3: We create a "story" that supports, explains, and substantiates our inner experience.
But here is the DANGER:
We rarely
question, confront, or face the body sensation and check it for its accuracy in the current environment. We assume that if we feel fear, as an example, there must be something dangerous in the environment and we act accordingly. But the most serious damage comes from not realizing that the "story" we are holding on to is a made-up creation to justify and explain those body sensations. (Because we are intelligent we can create good stories that are logical and make sense... and can still be totally untrue.)
That is how the untrained mind works. It reacts quickly,intensely, and without benefit of the frontal cortex--the thinking, logical, sequential part of us. Relying solely on the untrained mind is like giving a two-year-old the keys to drive a car. From the neck to the groin is usually where the first primitive reactions of the mammalian brain manifest. Often we experience body sensations which come in
under our conscious "radar" of awareness, but the reactions and the physical actions that follows are undeniable and powerful, We are able to react to body triggers before we have even understood them at the conscious level.
Training the untrained mind requires that we
pause, reflect, and confront our inner experience. Yes, if we see an out of control vehicle careening towards us it is best to go with the primitive action -- -- which makes us jump out of the way before our mind thinks of a solution. But in daily life we are not often dealing with escapes from savage animals, major natural disasters, or runaway vehicles. Thus our untrained mind runs wild-- triggered by a subtle environmental cues and we are find ourselves being pulled along for one hairy ride!
Focusing on what is going on within is the first step of mental training.Just because something is going inside does not mean that we need to act on that impulse. We need to learn to identify and control what is happening inside us if we'd ever hope to have a sense of peace in this world. The reality is that changing our internal experience is the only path that leads to self transformation and living well. Therapy, meditation and mindfulness are all ways of training the untrained mind. Mindfulness is primary because it turns our focus where it belongs --inside rather than outside. Mindfulness asks you to be curious about those body reactions, sensations, twinges, stories, and repeated thought patterns. Mindfulness makes us cautious about believing and investing on those stories that we tell ourselves.
Self transformation can come only by training the mind. While we have trained our muscles to walk, run, and leap our minds are still in the playpen. The havoc in our lives comes NOT from the outside environment but from the stories created by our untrained mind running wild, running free and hijacking us.
The answer is to train the mind... and to get ourselves out of the playpen and into some real freedom.
