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Transcript
Imagine if you had a vegetable garden and were growing tomatoes, carrots,
Speaker:zucchini, and other delicious fruits and vegetables, then just as your plants
Speaker:started to show signs of life, you jump in there and start planting some weeds.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:I said, weeds, the results wouldn't be great, but this is
Speaker:exactly what we do in our minds.
Speaker:We spend time cultivating a sense of calm and productivity with meditation
Speaker:and all these apps that we have.
Speaker:Then we throw in some mental weeds today.
Speaker:I'm gonna be talking to you about how to keep your mind free of these mental weeds
Speaker:and negative and destructive thought.
Speaker:I'm amid Ahmed and welcome to be.
Speaker:Well do well.
Speaker:So before we get started, I'd like to discuss a little bit about why
Speaker:we even have negative thoughts.
Speaker:You need to know that this is completely natural.
Speaker:It's human, and we all have, what's referred to in Buddhism as a monkey mind,
Speaker:we have a monkey mind inside all of us.
Speaker:This monkey mind jumps around and gets distracted and usually doesn't really
Speaker:have any control until we do things that help us get into control like meditation.
Speaker:So the first point I wanna discuss is that meditation itself is a really, really
Speaker:powerful way to be able to control your mind and to be able to calm those negative
Speaker:thoughts and those destructive thoughts.
Speaker:Meditation doesn't have to be you sitting in a Lotus position on a meditation pillow
Speaker:or out in a field by yourself for hours.
Speaker:Meditation can be just you sitting in your car after you drop your kids off to
Speaker:school, , just sit for a few minutes in silence and just observe your thought.
Speaker:one thing that a lot of people think is that meditation is to calm your
Speaker:mind and to control your thoughts.
Speaker:In fact, it's the opposite where meditation allows you to get
Speaker:in control of your thoughts.
Speaker:I've got a number of apps that I use for meditating.
Speaker:I've tried Headspace in the past right now, we're using an app called
Speaker:calm and they have daily meditations.
Speaker:And they're really, really good.
Speaker:I'm not being endorsed to say this, but calm is , definitely
Speaker:one of my favorite apps.
Speaker:Another one that I really enjoy is called smiling mind.
Speaker:Calm has a subscription cost to it.
Speaker:Whereas smiling mind is entirely free and smiling mind has meditations for
Speaker:different kinds of professionals.
Speaker:If you're a teacher or a first responder or an entrepreneur, they have
Speaker:different meditations for those as well.
Speaker:The second way to get rid of these negative thoughts is to
Speaker:actually ignore them and just reframe the way you see things.
Speaker:So for example imagine you're driving down the highway and everything is fine.
Speaker:And there's traffic flowing in both directions, everything seems okay.
Speaker:And then somebody cuts you off in traffic abruptly.
Speaker:Now you're probably gonna get quite upset and aggravated about it.
Speaker:So one option is for you to get angry and to respond.
Speaker:Maybe show them a finger or do, or the other option is to reframe it.
Speaker:You could either think that this person was just being rude and cut
Speaker:you off and being inconsiderate or the alternative is maybe they had a baby in
Speaker:the backseat and the baby was choking.
Speaker:And the person, the mom maybe had to quickly get into the shoulder
Speaker:lane and in doing so cut you off.
Speaker:Now, when you think of the ladder and you think of somebody cutting
Speaker:you off and you get upset about it.
Speaker:Well, if you knew that it was because the person didn't have a choice
Speaker:or they were trying to save their baby, you probably wouldn't get as.
Speaker:so here's an exercise next time you feel these negative thoughts coming on,
Speaker:what you can do is you can actually make up a silly and ideally compassionate
Speaker:story about why that happened.
Speaker:If you have a child that's vying for your attention while you're trying to
Speaker:work, rather than getting upset, you can make up a story about what it is.
Speaker:Maybe they drop something on their toe and they are in pain, or
Speaker:maybe something happened at school.
Speaker:And they're just embarrassed to tell you, and they're just looking for a.
Speaker:so when something comes up and you feel these negative thoughts, try
Speaker:to make up another story about why that could have happened, that may
Speaker:assist you in not feeling so negative.
Speaker:The third and final idea is to actually spend time with people
Speaker:that are just really positive.
Speaker:You know, there's those people out there that are just extremely
Speaker:optimistic and it's really hard for anything to bother them.
Speaker:A quick story here, we were looking for a bite to eat for lunch and our
Speaker:kids love to have McDonald's fries.
Speaker:And so we went to McDonald's and we are in a new city.
Speaker:We're traveling.
Speaker:We, didn't speak the language.
Speaker:And when we got to the front hill, we ordered.
Speaker:We ended up getting our order back, but it was incorrect.
Speaker:There were some wrong items in our order and they missed a few things.
Speaker:Well, there was a big lineup of people behind me and the guys
Speaker:that were working at the counter actually were really, really calm.
Speaker:And I was actually really impressed that they had such composure, even
Speaker:with all these people yelling at them lights, the sounds beeping around them.
Speaker:They just maintained their composure.
Speaker:It was really quite impressive.
Speaker:So 0.3 is to spend time.
Speaker:People that are extremely optimistic, positive.
Speaker:And also I should mention calm.
Speaker:Now here's a quick little challenge for you.
Speaker:Meditating has made a huge difference in my life.
Speaker:I've been meditating now for, I think about 250 days consecutively without
Speaker:stopping many, many days before that, but 250 days now without missing a single day.
Speaker:So my challenge to you is to pick a time either morning or evening, and set a timer
Speaker:on your watch or your phone for three.
Speaker:And during that three minutes, you're just gonna sit close your
Speaker:eyes and just observe no need to try any fancy meditation techniques.
Speaker:No need to sit in a lot.
Speaker:Disposition.
Speaker:Hands can be on your lap.
Speaker:Just sit comfortably.
Speaker:Comfort is key.
Speaker:So, what I want you to do is pick time either morning or afternoon or evening,
Speaker:and just three minutes of meditation this week, seven days straight.
Speaker:If you are successful, I think you'll notice a big
Speaker:change if you're unsuccessful.
Speaker:Well, there's no failure.
Speaker:It's only you either succeed or you learn.
Speaker:So notice what didn't work.
Speaker:Well, maybe it was the timing.
Speaker:Wasn't right.
Speaker:Maybe you didn't have the same time set every day of the week.
Speaker:But try three minutes a day this week for the next seven days.
Speaker:And I'd love to hear how your experience was.
Speaker:Send me a quick message.
Speaker:So to recap, here are the three things that you can do to prevent
Speaker:mental weeds and destructive thoughts from taking over your mind.
Speaker:Number one, like I mentioned is meditation.
Speaker:Number two is make up a story, a compassionate story about why
Speaker:something happened that upset you.
Speaker:And number three is surround yourself with really positive people.
Speaker:Now, if you can't find positive people around you immediately
Speaker:watch a really funny movie.
Speaker:One of my favorite movies is life is beautiful.
Speaker:And in that movie, there is some serious.
Speaker:Serious positivity.
Speaker:So I think you're gonna enjoy that in tomorrow's episode,
Speaker:I'm going to be talking about revenge, bedtime, procrastination.
Speaker:This probably explains why you feel tired all the time, and I'm gonna share some
Speaker:tips and tricks as to how you can overcome revenge, bedtime, procrastination.
Speaker:I hope this has been helpful, and I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.
Speaker:Have an awesome day.