The Superpower You Don’t Realise You Have | Amber Hawken Mindfulness Based CBT | YouTube Vlog

Have you ever laid in bed at night and thought to yourself, “My mind won’t stop”?

You know, your settling into your pillows, you’ve got your cosy socks on, a cuppa beside you, so excited to rest, gently closing those eyes and then, BOOM. The storm between your ears stirs..

Unanswered work emails, you forgot to tell Marjorie about that asshole client, the real estate agent who is pain in your ass, you left the clothes in the washing machine and there is also that unpaid parking fine. Also, when was the last time you watered the plants? You haven’t checked on the goldfish for three days either, is it even alive? 

And then, well, it’s of course the perfect time to reflect on all of your life mistakes from the age of three, as well as the potential future failures. Apparently a list from most regretful to least, and then you do it chronologically too to ensure you didn’t miss any; this will ensure you definitely feel like an organised failure. 

Perhaps scanning the inventory of your imperfections next, and what people may or may not think about you due to these and what you might do to change them. 

And  then, onto the black list of mofos who have done you wrong; add a little spite, anger  and blame to your nightly evening, ahem, rest. 

So by now you’ve covered the full spectrum of shame, doubt, guilt, insecurity, anger, fury, depression, sadness, fear, regret, desperation, loathing and anxiety. Well done, what a feat. 

This is normal and it’s also the sign of a mind using it’s owner. 

I’m going to explain how you can turn this around so the mind is your greatest tool. 

Let’s first get clear on what’s happening here. 

In short,  you’ve identified with involuntary thoughts and given them your attention. 

But, who are you when I say ‘you’?

To get some perspective about what’s the mind and what’s you, if you can see and say to yourself “My mind won’t stop”, then you can see that the mind and you are not the same thing. Let’s liken this to a cat. You can close your eyes and hear a cat meowing, and you can recognise that “the cat won’t stop meowing”, but it’s also clear that you are not the cat. But what if someone taped the cat to your head your entire life and you knew no different than the meowing that just goes on and on, and it became so normal that you forgot there was a difference between you and the cat?

You have a mind, thoughts happen; whichever ones you believe, give attention to and focus on will affect your feelings, emotions and energy, and your energy and emotions drive your actions.

Especially if you are not privy to being uncomfortable. That’s even fucking more unconscious and worse because if you’re not practicing and down with different energy (emotions) flowing through, you’ll avoid the uncomfortable and seek the pleasurable. This is quite the neanderthal way to exist. It’s also normal, but fuck normal.  Let’s consider what this flow of attention leads to and how we can use it in reverse.

If thoughts happen involuntarily, and we get to choose which to give life and attention to, why do we give it to the shitty low vibrational, negative ones? Mainly because we don’t realise that we are not thinking, we are so very close to the thoughts it feels this way, but as per my example above, we are actually hearing and seeing them and forget to add some space, to observe and mindfully choose which thoughts to give life to. 

And  the other reason is that no-one ever suggested to you that you don’t have to fucking believe these involuntary negative thoughts produced by the survival mind searching for potential threats.

It’s better to choose to direct your attention to what you want, what you have, to the presence of your own energy, body, heart, to the positive and purposeful things you want more of or wish to create.

Because these thoughts will of course shift into feelings, energy and emotions, and not only will your energy rise, but your view of the world will shift from what you don’t have, what might go wrong, the negative aspects of self and life, what you want to avoid, what you need to change or desire more of, and become full of light, joy, purpose, empowerment, happiness, energetic, balanced, content, fulfilled and flowing towards what’s in alignment. 

There’s much talk of spiritual growth, raising consciousness and personal purpose and evolution. But the focus tends to be on going beyond thought and of no mind and while this concept is a great development towards experiencing a greater sense of peace and purpose from within, what can get left behind is the value and extraordinary potential of the mind.

If you want to enjoy the brightness of fire, it’s abundant light, beauty and warmth, you don’t get rid of the fire, you learn how to play with it and not get burnt.  The mind is the same. And the most effective and foundational skill we require to be able to direct our attention to thoughts we wish to grow into energy, emotions and actions, is meditation. If you can observe and direct your mind, you’ll appreciate it’s the greatest fucking super power you’ve been trying so hard to run away from.

I break it down a little more in this video:

Eat it up and comment below with what you took away from this AND how many minutes a day you are going to commit to practicing meditation. If you dont know how to do so, it’s okay, I made a super simple and affordable audio training to teach you how to. The busier the mind, the greater the potential to transform your life with this training.

Hugs,

Ambz