There are times when problems accumulate, when we are low in spirits or when we are suffering from anxiety problems in which we feel that we have lost control of our mind. The mind goes free and the truth is that it would not hurt us to have more mental control over ourselves, because until we take control, we will not be able to solve anything.
Tricks to have more mental control
But something very important needs to be clarified. In this situation, what you are looking for is not to control your mind, something that you cannot and should not do. We want to control everything and the mind escapes that control. What we can do is learn to manage emotions and thoughts and that is what is called emotional intelligence. We reveal some tricks to take control of your own mind.
Breathe and ask: what’s wrong with you?
When you feel something going on in your mind slipping away, stop for a moment and take a few deep breaths. While you breathe, observe from the outside what is happening in your mind, what are you thinking, what are you visualizing. Detect all those images and ideas that go through your head and identify them.
Accept what your mind does
Once you have identified the activity of your mind, which may be irrational, obsessive, distorted or catastrophic thoughts, accept them. Really, don’t resist what your mind is generating because you’re not going to get anything. Don’t run away from your mind because you can’t escape from it.
Just accept what you think, even if you don’t like it, even if it hurts, accept that it’s there. By accepting it you will see how the weight of what your mind is producing is reduced a little, although the pain and suffering will not disappear just by accepting it. Should we do more.
Breathe and make room for the activity of your mind
You have already recognized what is going through your mind, you have already been honest with yourself to accept what is happening and now you have to make room for it within yourself. You have to leave a hole inside for all that activity that your mind generates, don’t ignore it, because it will come back stronger.
To make room for it inside you, you have to breathe deeply again, as before, and do it by thinking or visualizing everything that your mind proposes and that is causing you pain. Breathe as if you wrapped those ideas and let them be within you. Because once they’re accepted and put in place, they’ll have less power over you.
The importance of what your mind says
You have to listen to your mind, and sometimes it yells a lot, right? and it is impossible to ignore it. Listen to it, accept it, and embrace what comes out of it, but don’t take it too seriously. What your mind says is not as important as it seems, it is not as true as you think and, above all, in situations of emotional upheaval, it is not as useful as it should be. So listen to your mind, but don’t take too much of what it says.
The attention you pay to your mind
- Have you thought that maybe you are paying too much attention to your mind? It’s true that you don’t have to ignore it, that you can’t run away and get away from what’s going on in your mind, and it’s true that you have to accept it and make room for it. But that won’t take all the time.
- You can do it and change the focus of attention so that all this does not become a rumination process that makes you think about the same issue over and over again. Pay attention to other things, for example, not to what is happening in your mind but to what is happening at this very moment around you.
Make yourself aware
- Better managing your emotions or what you think is having mental control involves making yourself aware of the present moment and of that part of you that can be disconnected from your mind. Try it, try to observe your mind from the outside and you will see how the thoughts that hurt you become a little more alien, because they are the product of your mind, not of yourself.
- And now, turn around (metaphorically) and pay attention to the actions that are happening in your life, to your own, to those around you. Do you see how the frenetic activity of your mind is reduced? You are doing it, you are not controlling it, you are learning to manage it.