If a person does not share one of your deep-seated opinions about politics or religion, this person is vociferous about it—you become annoyed! A person talks to you while you are trying to concentrate—annoyed! Someone keeps asking you out on a date, when you have told him 100 times no—annoyed again. How do we rise above this common occurrence?
Moving beyond any behavior problem takes practice. You can’t suddenly want to lift 100 pounds without, first, having had lifted smaller weights—building up your strength. The same practice goes with the power to overcome adversity and mental issues. I know I’ve said this many times, but sometime people think meditation is simply the ability to get quiet. The practice of meditation helps you do so much more than get your mind quiet. In fact, meditation helps me more with subverting my mind in times of stress, than it does getting quiet. I call this being a crystal in the chaos.
To rise above annoyance, you must, first, learn to control your breath! Take deep inhales for the count of five or six, then exhale for the same count. You would think this small exercise would be easy, but try it for a few minutes, focusing all your energy and effort simply on controlling your breath. You’ll find that you lose concentration rather quickly. You may gain some help if you get a metronome APP on your cell phone or computer. The simple act of hearing a rhythm can help hold your attention long enough to practice this for a few minute.
The next step to garnering control over your mental state is to release control of the breath completely and simply watch it—without controlling it. In other words, you must sit or lie very still and wait for your body to breath on its own volition. This, again, seems simple, but try this exercise, watching, and wait. These are exercises that stabilize and control the human condition. Again, learning to control the basic functions of the body is going to lead you to a place of controlling the harsher parts of life.
Once you have sat with the ability to release control of your breath, begin to release control of your muscles and parts of your body, as well. (I’ve specifically used the word control in this circumstance, because most of us feel that control helps our lives—keeps it in order. In this instance, learning to lose control is more important.) The same part of your brain that moves your foot, can also release your foot. The part of your mind that creates a list of things you must do in a day, can also watch your thoughts and not engage. First, focus in on a body part, perhaps, moving it, then releasing the same part. If someone were to come up and lift your leg or arm, it would feel limp and lifeless. This is the objective for all the body parts.
Basically, what we must do is get your control out of your human body and into a place of observing, instead of manipulating, it change your perception about human control and learn to garner the real power in mind control. This is the key factor in meditation. When you find your body and breath completely released from your mind, you will have no need to stop the thoughts in your brain, because you will be quiet.
You see, quietness in the mind doesn’t mean shutting out your thoughts. Thoughts have a human life of their own. Meditation means, simply, becoming the observer of your humanness, rising above it, and not conversing with or engaging with it.
When you get to this point in your practice, you should have no problem rising above any annoyance in your life, because you will have mastered your own mind and lifted that hundred pound pain in the butt right out of your life!
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This weekend is the book launch for my new cookbook: Gluten-Free, High Protein Cookbook and Recipes: Easy Meals in Less than 30 Minutes, which means the book will be FREE to my friends for exactly 5 days on Amazon and Amazon Kindle (ending Monday, August 11).
[Take the time to look at Bo’s bookshelf of self-help books, novels, healing downloads, and yoga DVD. All of Bo’s books helps people such as you, make SIGNIFICANT CHANGE with habits, find your SOULMATE, your PASSION, reach YOUR DREAMS, and dictate your own FUTURE. Chosen to show his new hypnotherapeutic techniques on The Learning Channel (TLC) and also given the opportunity to teach at the world conference for Learning, and received the award of excellence for Helping Overcome Obesity in Nashville, Bo Sebastian is the writer and director of Finding Authentic You and Uncommon Gay Spiritual Warrior. Go directly to Amazon/Amazon Kindle:
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