Tonight, while walking the dog, I succeeded for the first time in a long time to stop the inner dialogue that is normally playing in my head. I don't know how ... I just did. Two nights ago I had gone on the same walk and could feel, as I walked along , that my head was enveloped in a cloud of incessant mental activity. Tonight I was able to switch it off for reasonably lengthy periods. I would still drift off into the past and future but only for a few seconds and then I would snap back to the here and now. Previously, I had been using the inner dialogue paradoxically to try to achieve a state of presence. I'd say things to myself like "sink into your inner stillness" and in retrospect this was quite silly.
Try this simple experiment. Listen for one second to the thoughts in your head. Turn your attention inward. What is it you hear? Perhaps you may see or hear that there is nothing there at all. You see by looking for the thoughts, for the noise, for the incessant spinning, it all seems to disappear. Of course, one second later it starts again and our attention is blindly attracted to the thoughts.
Perhaps, through your busy day, if you can take a second here and there to once again look inside and see this inner dialogue, you will again and again be amazed that by attending to it and simply being aware of it - it just disappears. Rest there in that point of disappearance. And resting there brings with it a great sigh of relief and peace. You have found your true identity: the pure silence, your true self and home.
I also like this approach to the problem as presented at http://bookfloozy.wordpress.com/
“When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.”The phrase "inner dialogue" or "inner dialog" returns a huge number of websites and images in Google, which is not surprising I guess. In turning my inner dialogue off, I felt a lot more in control and a lot more focused on what was happening around me. I felt more mentally alive, instead of feeling like my head was full of cotton wool.
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