Three Secrets You Need to Know About the Monkey
Mind
The term "monkey mind" was originally coined by Zen Buddhist
monks to describe the condition of your mind racing from one
thought to the next, creating mental churn that saps you of
vital life force energy. We here in the Western world
experience it as that which keeps us in busywork mentality,
feeling overwhelmed, susceptible to taking on too much and
having really long, sleepless nights.
While monkey mind has come to have a negative connotation, it
also has a vital purpose. The reason it exists is to process
information necessary for both survival and problem-solving.
These are functions that are as significant as any other body
function; the challenge is that, by virtue of its role, it
continuously handles information. Monkey mind is activated due
to system overload when there is more information than mental
processing bandwidth. Myth has it that there is more
information in one Sunday edition of The Wall Street Journal
than there was available for an entire lifetime when Thomas
Jefferson lived, so you can see where our innate mind has
learned to race to keep up.
Knowing that the monkey mind has a viable and valuable job
helps to honor when it takes an active role in your life.
However, there are three secrets that, when you know them, can
completely change your understanding of how you are living your
life.
The first secret of the monkey mind is that it is your servant.
That is, you have the power to consciously direct it's
activities through focus and addressing whatever it is working
on in the moment. The din of the monkey mind is similar to that
created in a room full of people having individual
conversations - all together, it just makes noise. However, if
you handle each conversation individually, they begin to make
sense. In the monkey mind, these conversations are information
that you may need to know; if you acknowledge what your servant
is doing, reporting or working on, your monkey mind will move
on. It requires, however, that you being present to your monkey
mind to allow information processing.
The second secret of the monkey mind is that it processes by
opposition. That is, we live in a world of duality where every
item/condition/state of being has its' opposite. For example,
up has down, left has right, and masculine has feminine. The
monkey mind is trained through our Western socialization
development to function by repetition and in a linear fashion.
Therefore, it will chug down a linear thought path, which
becomes a pattern over time.
The idea is that the monkey mind can, as a result of repetition
and logical order, accordingly and effectively handle the
issues that challenge us most, such as whether to move or stay
put, to pay down debt or make an investment, to get a new job
or start a business. There are many conflicting desires in our
world that cause the monkey mind to become activated. The
secret is in knowing that it processes by opposition, so if you
feed it with lots of potentially conflicting information, it
will eventually sort it all out for you in a linear
fashion.
The third secret of the monkey mind is that its' voice is the
loudest when you are making big change for yourself or have the
opportunity to do so. Remember, its job is to protect and
provide information for survival. If your status quo is
threatened in any way, even if you wanted and initiated the
change, your monkey mind will intervene to let you know there's
an influx of new information. The key to appreciating this
secret is that it can be your indicator that you are on your
right path to creating significant change in some way.
While the monkey mind has limited wisdom in some ways, knowing
these three secrets can mean the difference from letting it
make you crazy to allowing it to help you in a more meaningful
way.
Lynn Scheurell, Creative Catalyst, helps conscious
entrepreneurs strengthen their inner systems, both personal and
professional, for faster business results. She teaches
renaissance souls how to gain clarity on their purpose by
remembering who they are from their essential self, then
aligning everything they do to express their unique gift
through their business while working with natural energies for
maximum support. Register for a free GEENI™ for Change ecourse
to learn how to upgrade your life in just seven days at
http://www.mycreativecatalyst.com
by Lynn Scheurel - 10/21/2008
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