Cleaning Up Your Thoughts: Using Mindfulness to Clear Mind Clutter

Clean up those thoughts-use Mindfulness and Meditation to reprogram your brain
What gets in the way of making positive changes?
In this episode, we learn:

• Your thoughts are very powerful.  
• I’m learning how powerful my thoughts are.
• Reference: Law of Attraction, your thoughts attract your reality
• What are your health goals?

What are you thinking?

• If you don’t know what your thoughts are, try observation
• Using Mindfulness, you can learn to observe your thoughts
• Let’s take a few minute  to observe our thoughts

Are your thoughts consistent with who you are as a person?
Are you the things that you observed in your thoughts?

How can you clean up your thoughts?

• I advise first developing a meditation practice
• Check out my book, The 21 day Meditation Journey
• Sign up for me FREE Mindfulness Mastery course
• Ground Your Energy with my FREE book 9 ways to Ground Your Energy
• If your thoughts are negative, stop judgement
• Learn to be kind to yourself

Welcome to the Art of Healing Podcast community.  This podcast is devoted to helping you find what works on your journey to health and wellness.  This podcast is devoted to providing information on many healing modalities.  Learn more about:

• Reiki
• Functional Medicine
• Meditation
• Energy Healing

and more!

Learn more about Dr. Charlyce here. 

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Transcript

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Speaker 1 1:48

Hello and welcome back to the Art of Healing Podcast. This is Charli, and thank you so much for joining me for this episode for the second week of January. So I hope that the new year, this 2022 years getting started, fantastic for you and I hope that everything is going smoothly and that you are seeing all kinds of possibilities for all of your hopes and dreams and wishes to come true. So for today's episode, I want to talk about our thoughts, our mind matter, and how we can clean our thoughts up so that our thoughts are aligned to create the life we lo want. Now, tools like mindfulness and meditation can help to reprogram our brains. So the first question to ponder in your mind is , you're listening to this episode, what's in the way of you making the positive changes that you want to make? And as you're listening and if you're like me, you listen to your podcast on the go, you can make a mental note. But if you're sitting down, you might want to take a moment to even write down your thoughts and maybe sketch this note to your cell on your cell phone . But this is a good question, is what is getting in the way of you making your positive changes? So as you're pondering that question, I'm going to review or go over something I just recently learned. I had been hearing for years about the law of attraction. You know, there's so many powerful books and texts by really powerful healers and teachers, and the law of attraction was one I just simply had not had a chance to read for myself. So after hearing it mentioned, you know, several times I thought, well, I think I'm gonna go ahead and read this and get an idea. So the law of attraction, the basics of the Teachings of Abraham, which is a very well known and honestly, listeners, you may have already read this, I just recently finished it. But I'm gonna just briefly cover the three laws that are presented by the authors. As you're pondering what might be getting in the way of you making the changes that you wanna make I did this for myself and I really found it maybe stopping my tracks and think about a lot. So those three laws of attraction, the first law of attraction is that which is like onto itself is drawn. The second law is the science of deliberate creation, which is that which I give thought to and that which I believe or expect is. And the third law is the art of allowing, which is I am that which I am, I am willing to allow all others to be that which they are. So of course, I strongly recommend if you are curious that you read the book for yourself. I had heard it referenced in many other of the books that I read in as my own form of bibliotherapy. We'll talk about bibliotherapy. I just learned that term myself and my lifestyle medicine training as your reading as a form of healing. But what we can take from those re the just a brief presentation of what those three laws are. And of course I would definitely encourage you to purchase a copy of the book if you not read it, to read it for yourself, is that your thoughts are very powerful. All of the mind matter or the stuff that we all sort of live in because as humans we have these really large brains, they're very powerful. We often forget how powerful they are. And we have that conscious level of thinking, and we have the subconscious level of thinking that's running the show is we want to realize, and it was, as I was reading this, it was a , a somewhat shocking realization for me that all of the little matter that floats through in and out of there is actually making the reality you live in. It's creating your world is actually creating every part of your world. So in terms of where you want your life to go as far as your body, how you're wanting to feel, maybe you've got a goal to strive. Maybe you're wanting to strive for something like a marathon, or you're hoping for a baby, or you know, anything like that. It turns out that the little thoughts, the little things that are in between the moments, the , you know, things when you're in the car driving, those are actually shaping the direction that your life will go. So when you're thinking about what's getting in the way, if you feel like there's some kind of block and you're thinking about your goals, just directing your attention, not in a panicky way, not in a scary way, but just directing your attention to what's the mind matter, what's the little background stuff that's going on that may be pushing you in the right direction or pulling you in the direction you're not wanting to go. So upon realizing this even for myself, but definitely as we walk this journey together, the next question you can ask yourself. So of course if you're listening and you're on the go, you can just make a mental note. But if you are listening and wanting to use this time as a little bit of a reflection, the next question you can ask is, what are you thinking? What's actually in your thoughts? So as I ask this question, you can even take a minute to pause and, and sort of envision what's the matter of your thoughts or what is the flow? Is it images, is it emotions? Is it memories? Is it sensations in the body? Is it thoughts of the future? So as you do this, you're actually practicing a bit of an mindfulness right now. We're actually doing it together. As we interact on this podcast, we're doing a little bit of observation. So even for myself, what's the, the thoughts that are in my mind as I'm recording this podcast? Are my voice, what I'm saying in the moment, what I'm gonna say in the next five seconds, what the listeners are doing as they listen. My emotions would definitely be calm right now. Excited cuz it is fun to make these podcasts is fun to connect. So as you sort of flow through this, the way you can think of it, and in my own mindfulness practice is when you're, if you're doing a formal practice and you're sitting in quiet and giving, allowing some time just as a practice is to put a label on it. And for me, this has been the way that I found this accessible when I practicing observation, which we're doing right now. So just sort of letting the mind empty for a second and not blocking anything coming in actually you invited , let it flow on in and then try to label it in emotion , a sensation, a worry, a future thought, a past thought , a memory. And in the labeling what we're doing is we're not going to judge it. We don't wanna call it good, bad, we just categorize it, then we let it flow, and then we let the next thing come on. So this is using mindfulness, and of course mindfulness can be done fantastically in a formal meditation, but even in your moment to moment life, if you're at work or driving or anything like that, you can actually take a moment just to label your thoughts. And this really does take practice. I've been practicing this myself for the past year and just now starting to understand how powerful of a practice of just letting those slots come, putting them in a category and starting to see where my categories flow. Are they more worried about the future? Are they more concerned about the past? And I found this to be so helpful, especially when I'm working with my patients one-on-one and you know, realizing the nature of medical practice that they're coming in with their own heaviness and emotional burdens. So it helps me to check my thoughts, to just see a flow of like, oh, reaction blocking worry. And it's not that anything happens, it's just nice to classify it. So as you work with this , this is a really powerful tool as far as making your plans for your health. If you're wanting to work on some weight loss, then thinking about where are your thoughts flowing as far as the weight loss, if you're wanting to heal chronic pain, not judging, but making observations about the thoughts that go around the body part that's causing the, the chronic pain. So the real power in this technique, it's not that you're going to fix it. And when as well, when we practice mindfulness, we're not going to fix it. We're simply going to observe, and I encourage you to practice this, of course , if you wanna do it as a formal practice, we're gonna do a meditation together in a couple of weeks where we can sort of practice this together. But I would definitely encourage you to do it just in your moment to moment in your everyday life. Now that we've put some labels and thought about what is the, the classifications of that thought matter, mind matter, the next question you can ask are, are your thoughts consistent with you? So if you are doing this as a journaling or, or just, you know, maybe just now have a look back and see what was, you know, going on during that period of time. Are the thoughts that you observed, do they seem consistent with what you're trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish in your life? So were those thoughts positive? Did they lead to possibilities and pulling inspirations about the next steps? Or did it seem like the thoughts were negative and we're bringing about more challenges or bringing about things that you can't even necessarily change because they're so big, so out of your control? So we're gonna take the same observation type , non-judgmental. It's not so much that we're gonna beat ourselves up or anything like that, but this is now the step that you can really start to see if what you're thinking is aligning with what you're trying to accomplish. So again, it's, it's small concepts, but it's big concepts and it definitely takes some practice. And I hope that wherever you are, if this is a challenge that you're sort of thinking of that you can see that this, you know, really tiny little mind gain , retraining our thoughts, can actually change the direction of where you're going. Definitely can change your , the direction of where you're going. All right , so then the next step is what to do next. So how do we change or redirect or clean up the matter of our minds so that we can start to see the life that we want around us? So how are we, how should we approach our thoughts so that we can see the things like losing the unwanted weight, feeling better in the mornings, sleeping better at night, having a better mood, reducing how many medications that were on . So let's cover some tips as far as how we can do that. My first tip, So of course my first tip, which is you know, you're , you're listening to a reiki practicing physician. So what's she gonna say if you don't have a meditation practice, just walking through this exercise is a good reason to start thinking about ways and how you might wanna start meditating if you don't. And I have resources, which you can definitely check out my website, healing Arts Health and wellness.com. One of my resources is the 21 day Meditation journey, which is an ebook I published, which is available on Amazon which is got 21 short meditation and mindfulness exercises, which are good launching pad or a good daily, something you can return to every day to help you set in the habit. One thing I like about using a guided written meditation journey is that it really takes away the distractions and helps you to really get the, the habit wired in of meditation just on your own, where it's something you create on your own. Now I am a huge fan of guided meditations and definitely I do them myself. But I , I also have found real power in just spending even three minutes alone or, you know, five minutes alone . But of course, if you have longer to spare, just to do that, I also have a 21 day meditation challenge, which is an e-course available at healing arts health and wellness.com underneath the programs. Next, if you are going through this exercise and you have determined that the mind mander is negative or not, what you want, the hardest of these is to not judge what you just experienced. So when we were doing that labeling exercise we, we put things in a classification, but we didn't call it good or bad. Wouldn't say bad thought, angry thought, ugly thought. And it's really important as you practice this to try not to put a positive or negative. Cuz when we do that, it gives the power of our emotions back to us. It, we don't put an emotional tag on something like a thought that's fleeting. Of course, as you're doing this, you'll notice that your thoughts were fleeting and they may have been so rapid you couldn't even classify all of them . But we wanna not judge because when we're judging, we give an emotional charge. And when it gets an emotional charge on our human brains, we're gonna follow it and it's gonna take us down to more of those thoughts, more in that direction, more, more, more. And what we learned from the law of attraction is that as we internally create that it starts to show up externally. It takes practice. It's something that even my everyday life I find a real challenge that a thought will come up, that I want to give it a negative label and give it a charge and follow it. And I really have to reaffirm to myself that it's a fleeting thought, it's gonna go and I don't have to follow it. And sure enough, being that I have a human brain, kind of a monkey mind , like we all do, it's gonna be gone. You'll forget . You'll move on to something else or something even really positive shows up and takes its place. As you're working with your mind matter and getting to where you wanna be in your health, the most important thing is kindness to yourself. A very powerful mindfulness technique is loving kindness. And it starts with kind, loving thoughts to yourself. And essentially you're practicing a skill that you'll learn to magnify across humanity and it helps us all. But you start with the microcosm of yourself. So as you're approaching what you wanna see in your health, you're approaching your health goal. For instance maybe it's, I want to sleep better. This one's a struggle for me. I think for a lot of us, all of our time on electronics just simply kind thoughts of how it feels good when you rest well, how great you feel in the morning kind thoughts of, you know, how you want to rest your body at night, redirecting the thoughts that way. And then with practice, that sort of mental hook will keep to taking you in the same place so that you'll notice things like you pick better habits during the day that support your sleep. You avoid things that disrupt your sleep, like maybe alcohol. You start avoiding that you sleep better, you find out that you're wanting to exercise cuz the day that you got some exercise, you slept better that night. And so again, and so that law of attraction kind of pulls you more and more in that direction without you having to force it. And finally if you are wanting more ready to dig deeper, If you are ready to go much deeper, take a deeper dive. If you are feeling like you're at the place of you are ready to change right now, you are wanting a plan, you want something personalized just for you, I do encourage you to consider having a look at my 15 minute connection call or having a look at some of my individual programs for those that are ready to take the big leap and make those positive changes, including my reiki coaching program in which you start the program as a reiki student and you complete it as a reiki master. And all along the way you get really individualized attention, including individual reiki sessions with me really to help guide and push you in the direction you wanting to go. And then the upcoming lifestyle medicine program, the seven Pillars of health. So you, I would definitely encourage you to check those out. They're more involved. Definitely you should be at a place that you feel ready to devote several hours a week to yourself, but just want you to know those are available. As always, thank you so much for joining me. Tune in for next week's episode where we'll be talking a little bit more about how we can use our minds and meditation to get to where we want. Wishing all of you the best, thank you so much for joining me. Please feel free to leave a review if you found this helpful or share with your friends or family. Thank you.