The Monkey Mind In A Digital Age – Coping With Thought Overload
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 15, 2023
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 18, 2024
Written by: Sabine Priestley, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
What are you thinking? You’ve likely heard this statement before, but how often do you consciously pay attention to your thoughts throughout the day?
An interesting thing happens when you train yourself to make this a habit. You’re likely to find a lot of negative talk going on up there.
Welcome to the realm of the untrained human psyche—commonly referred to as the monkey mind or inner critic. As you practice self-awareness, you realize that self-doubt and criticism are nearly always with you.
If someone else treated you the way you do yourself in your inner dialogue, would you stand for it?
Let’s hope not. So, what’s up? Why do we do this to ourselves?
A lot is happening, and it’s profoundly significant. A bit too much for a brief article, but I will set you on the right path below. If you struggle with self-esteem, self-worth, or confidence, it’s time to become the observer of your thoughts. That may sound easy, but my personal experience and that of my clients, says otherwise.
Research suggests we are not aware of up to 95% of our own thoughts
Even if that number is high, the implications are staggering. It could also explain a lot. Thoughts lead to emotions, emotions lead to thoughts. Self-perpetuating loops are very common.
The process of reshaping the monkey mind isn’t a quick fix; it’s a lifestyle shift. Although I’m an engineer, I have spent years studying spirituality and expanded consciousness.
I’ve been practicing being aware for a while, and it’s ridiculously easy to go “mindless.”
For me, being conscious is not just about transcendent experiences (although I’m all for those) it’s about how we interpret and even create our reality.
We have the power to shape our daily lives and be the hero or victim of our own story. It’s all about how we choose to interpret the events around us. However, making these choices is nearly impossible until we make the invisible, visible and start paying attention to our own thoughts.
Practicing awareness is how we optimize mind, body and our connection to the higher self — Source, God, Bob, whatever you want to call it
That’s my playground thanks to a devastating dark night of the soul in 2016. That experience changed me in ways I couldn’t explain, let alone understand at the time. It opened doors I didn’t know existed. It also launched me into a new life—one where reality can shift, magic is real, the past can be rewritten and Love wins.
In case you’re not familiar with the term, here are some hallmarks of a Dark Night of the Soul:
Your life ceases to make sense.
You no longer “fit in” with your previous groups of friends and even family.
You realize you don’t know who you are any longer, and possibly never did.
You might be experiencing an existential crisis, questioning your identity, purpose, and belief in a higher power.
At the same time, you’re possibly feeling what can only be considered as a calling from a higher power.
You feel like there has to be more to this life.
You may find yourself on a quest for purpose.
An entire world seems to be opening up to you, but you have no one to talk to about any of it.
There is an endless list of symptoms and experiences.
The only way to transcend a Dark Night is to go through it. The other option is to stay precisely where and who you are now, but in my experience, this isn’t always viable. There seems to be a tipping point of no return and there is no going back.
It’s a red pill, blue pill dilemma as seen in the movie The Matrix—open yourself to uncomfortable truths, or stay ignorant and remain powerless.
Expanding our consciousness enables us to experience more and have a greater impact on our world
So, how aware are you of your thoughts? It’s worth the effort to find out and isn’t hard to do. It is challenging, especially in the beginning, to stay conscious. But that’s the objective right there—increasing your awareness and consciousness from moment to moment, day by day. Slowly but surely moving from a life of reaction to response.
If you’re ready to find out what’s going on in your head, grab a notebook and spend a few days writing down all of your thoughts. Don’t judge and don’t edit—just be curious and honest. Do your best to capture as many as possible. If you do this thoroughly, you’ll likely find patterns, trends and a surprising amount of self-criticism.
Taming this thing the Buddhists call The Monkey Mind is one of the foundation stones of my four-month Conscious Quantum Living program. LINK This four-month journey builds self-awareness of mind and body, including the energy body. The program introduces you to meditation (not your mother’s meditation…) and takes you on an inner journey to discover who you are under all the limiting beliefs and conditioning. It is one way of remembering who you are and why you came.
There is an increasing amount of research around the area of Self-Awareness.
The struggle with the Monkey Mind is real and meditation is one way of not just taming the mind, but of taking a journey within and unleashing your true power. See here.
If you take on this challenge, I’d love to hear from you! What did you find hiding in plain sight?
I have a growing number of videos on my YouTube channel, including discussions and meditations, to get you started on your journey to self. I hope to see you there!
Sabine Priestley, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Sabine Priestley is the creator of Conscious Quantum Living. She is an electrical engineer, advanced Bio-Well practitioner, researcher of the nexus of science and spirituality and author of steamy, science fiction romance (yes, you read that correctly.) Love informs everything she does. She believes you shape your energy environment, or the environment you’re in will do it for you. Sabine is on a mission to provide people with the tools to navigate this 3D life in order to elevate their energetics and expand their consciousness. She gets them clarity, joy and empowered living.
