39. Using Mindfulness to Overcome Your Monkey Mind

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You feel it, don’t you. Your mind is restless, unsettled, and you might be a bit confused and lost in your thoughts. This is common, friends, and is what is known as your monkey mind. The good news is there are ways you can quiet your mind.

In today’s episode, host Jason Ramsden shares what it  means to have a Monkey Mind and how a mindfulness practice, including meditation, can help you loosen the grip your mind has on your life. 

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Article Links
Calming the Monkey Mind by Diana Raad, Ph.D. (psychologytoday.org)
Mindfulness by Psychology Today Staff (psychologytoday.com)
Getting Started with Mindfulness by Mindful.org Staff (mindful.org)

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Calm App; Calm is the #1 app for sleep and meditation. Join the millions experiencing better sleep, lower stress, and less anxiety. (Apple, Android)

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EP30: Metahuma: Unleashing Your Infinite Potential by Depak Chopra, MD.
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we can all work on leading amore positive and intentional
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please subscribe today. Now,let's get into today's episode.

(00:44):
Hello, my positivity posse andwelcome to another episode of
positivity on fire. Today, we'retaking a look at how we can show
up for ourselves and others. Byusing mindfulness to overcome
our monkey minds. monkey mind isjust what psychologists describe
as a state of being unsettled,restless or confused, and is

(01:05):
taken from Zen Buddhism. Now Iknow we've all had restless
minds, and I'm been dealing witha bit of unsettledness, myself
recently. So let's get goingwith today's topic and dive
right in. Resistancenever eases our suffering, it
only adds a second layer to ourpain. Ultimately, it's only when

(01:26):
we loosen our grip that we setourselves free. Tomorrow, love
it. And I started today's showwith that specific quote because
it's one that I posted recentlyand had a little little bit of a
debrief on in terms of beingable to loosen the illusion of
control in our lives. And I hada comment from a friend of mine

(01:48):
who posted it says how does oneloosen the grip of a mind that
has other plans. And I thoughtto myself, well, my friend is
having these questions. Andperhaps others are as well. And
I know myself, I'm runningthrough a couple of things where
the monkey mind is getting inthe way it's a little unsettled.

(02:09):
It's a little restless. And so Ithought okay, let's dive into
that topic today. But before weget into kind of mindfulness and
how to use it to overcome themonkey mind, let's talk about
what is the monkey mind you mayor may not have heard that
phrase before, it's prettycommon to talk about the things
that happen in our minds what'sgoing on. It's also what my

(02:31):
friend called the grip, right?
So I'm going to equate themonkey mind to this grip on our
mind. First off, let's, let'ssay the mind is a wonderful
thing, right? It allows us to becreative, that allows us to be
productive. It allows us tounearth big ideas, but it's also
always in conflict with ourheart, right? They say, you

(02:56):
know, the mind and the heart,they need to be in simpatico if
if things are going in the rightdirection. But oftentimes, the
mind and the heart are at oddswith each other. And that's
where the monkey mind reallystarts to kind of get in the way
in what it can do, right, themonkey mind can can set a
sideways, it can get in the wayof creativity and productivity,

(03:19):
you can get in the way of bigideas. Because that voice in our
head can get in the way of whatour heart wants to say, in all
honesty, sometimes that the mindthat voice that we hear, it
turns dark, and it can, it canlead us down a path of feelings
of fear and guilt and anger. Andit can also evoke feelings of

(03:41):
sadness, and envy andresentment. And what we really
needed to do what we really needit to be, is have this sense of
sense of lightness, right? Inorder for us to kind of let
things go and to move on ourlives. We need to have this this
lightness, this this sense ofwell being. And so we need to
wrestle with this monkey mind.
And that's I think that's thetopic for today. That's what

(04:03):
we're going to be focused on.
And the reason is if we focusedtoo intently on our thoughts,
there's a huge chance, a hugechance that we'll lose touch
with the here and now because wego off on a tangent bidding in
our minds, what could have beenwhat should have been what can

(04:25):
be and we get to ourselves to apoint where we we lose
ourselves, we lose ourselves, weallow the monkey mind to take
control or as my friend said, weallow that grip on our mind to
take over and we're not quitesure how to move forward. Now
one of the greatest examples ofwhat a monkey mind is that I

(04:48):
came across in my reading wellfirst up the the mind has
roughly 50,000 separate thoughtseach day. Okay, imagine that for
a minute right 50,000 separatethoughts. And oftentimes,
they're about the same topic. Soif you Well, here's, here's the
imagery. If you imagine eachthought as a branch of a tree,

(05:09):
and then you for say, your mind,your attention, your conscious
mind is similar to a monkey,it's gonna swing from thought
branch, the thought branch allday long. Now, if this sounds
familiar to you, if this soundslike what your mind is doing
everyday, it's normal, right?
Don't feel like it's not normal.

(05:30):
We all do it. We all have tonsof thoughts every day, in a
monkey in our mind is going tobe jumping from branch to
branch. And quite often, thesethe thoughts that we're having,
we're going to start withquestions, and they're going to
be alright, well, what if, howabout questions that are in our
minds that we kind of ruminate.
And it could be aboutrelationships, it could be about

(05:52):
finances, it could be aboutthings going on at work. But the
root cause of them all typicallytends to be irrational fears,
irrational fears that you haveabout your life in some way,
shape, or form. And then whenyou feed, like when you feed the
monkey in your head, bycontinually focusing on on

(06:14):
things that you have no controlover, you really don't, right,
you if you're looking into thefuture, and worrying about what
may or may happen next week,next month, next year, 10 years
from now, you can't you can'tcontrol it, the monkey loves
that, though they feed off ofit. And that kind of spurs them
through this, you know, jumpingthrough your mind. Now, I'm not

(06:35):
here to suggest that you canactually tame the monkey in your
minute, it's not going tohappen. Alright, it's too much
embedded in our brains. Whatwe're going to focus today on is
how you can use mindfulness in amindfulness practice, to help
alleviate some of the feelingsthat you have, how you can use
strategies to kind of let thosethoughts dissipate, move on,

(07:00):
allows you to get a little bitmore clarity, a little bit more
focus. And that's the point of amindfulness practice. So when my
friend asked me, How do youloosen the grip on your mind,
like when your mind has a gripon you, I should say, how do you
loosen it? Like what are tipsand tricks that can happen? And

(07:21):
my response, my comment backwas, you know, for me, it's all
about breath, work, breath, workand meditation. And I know,
you're, if you don't believe inthis, you may feel like it
sounds a little crunchy granola,a little New Age kind of stuff.
And the truth is, I didn'tbelieve in it before. And by

(07:41):
beforehand, me my entire life,until I started my own journey
back in December 2020. Right inthe midst of the pandemic, I had
a lot of things going on, in mymind, a lot of things taking
place. And I wanted, I wanted totry something different. And
that's where my meditationpractice came in. My mindfulness

(08:02):
practice came to light. And I'vebeen doing it December 3, that
was the first day. And it's beencontinual every single day,
typically in the mornings,sometimes at night. But it has
been a way for me to try andfind some clarity to try and
deal with the thoughts that comeup in my mind. And it's a

(08:24):
morning routine, typically,that, for me, has been like no
other. We have done it 300 andwhatever days now, and and what
I'll say about mindfulness andmeditation practice is you need
to find what works best for you.
Alright, so we're talking aboutthe monkey mind and a

(08:46):
mindfulness practice. And sowhat is a mindfulness practice?
Exactly? At the very basiclevel, a mindfulness practice is
something that allows us to putsome space between ourselves and
our react reactions. So ourreactions to our thoughts or
reactions to things that happenin our lives. And it helps us

(09:09):
break down our conditionedresponses. Yes, over your
lifetime, you have learned and Ihave learned people have learned
how to respond to stimuli incertain ways. And like anything
else, we have to unlearn thatconditioned response, we have to

(09:30):
unlearn how we have been taughtto respond to external stimuli,
to our thought process to thingsthat are going on in our lives.
So base the basics here of amindfulness practice, are number
one, you have to set aside timethat that can be you know, a

(09:51):
long amount of time to be ashort amount of time for me.
It's 10 minutes, 10 minutes aday. You don't need anything you
don't need like a cushion or aband. Sure, a meditation room in
your house. Now, it can beanywhere, you don't need any
special equipment at all toaccess mindfulness skills, but
you do need to set aside sometime and a space. Okay, for me,

(10:15):
that is in our sunroom on acouch that kind of has a little
bit of a stiff back. So I cansit up straight, but it could be
anywhere, it could be at thekitchen table, it could be in
your car, before you head towork or before you head home
from work. Whatever works bestfor you just need to set aside
time and space. The secondcomponent is you need to observe

(10:38):
the present moment as it is likeright in the present moment. So
the idea of mindfulness is notabout quieting your mind, right,
we know that we've got themonkey mind, we know that that
the thoughts are going to jumpfrom branch to branch. What
observing the present moment is,is not chasing the monkey from

(10:59):
branch to branch in our brains,trying to keep up with it,
trying to move with it. No waywe could never do that. And be
when we observe the presentmoment, we attempt to kind of
achieve this state of calm, astate of clarity. And the goal
is pretty simple here, okay,we're aiming to pay attention to

(11:21):
the present moment, without anyjudgement at all. We're not
judging our thoughts. Okay,that's where we get in trapped
in kind of this cycle of havingour mind have a grip on us. So
going back to what my friendsaid, How do you loosen it? It's
we're aiming to pay attention tothe present moment without any
judgement at all. Okay, now,that's easier said than done. I

(11:44):
get it. I get it. I've beendoing for a while now. And I
still have judgment about mythoughts. Yeah, we all do. It's
it's human nature. The next stepin the process has, you got to
let your judgments just roll on.
Okay. Think of it. When we talkabout a duck with water off its
back. It's the same concept.
When judgment arise in ourthinking. And this is going to

(12:05):
happen a lot, when you're justsitting with yourself. When that
takes place, you got to just yougot to make a mental note of
them, you got to just let themfloat by you. And you have to
let them pass. I know, again,easier said than done. But once
you learn to kind of just say,okay, recognize that thought,
I'm gonna just let it go on acomeback to the present moment,

(12:26):
your mind will settle for for aminute or two, and then the
monkey will start jumpingbranches again. But if you
acknowledge it, and you let itgo, when that happens, just
return to the present moment,again, our minds will get
carried away. That's just howlife works. That's how our minds
work. That's how we're designedand built to be. And so we will,

(12:47):
we'll get carried away andthought the, the idea of
mindfulness is returning overand over and over and over
again, to the present moment.
When you think about the past,or you think about the future,
okay, the past is somethingthat's in the past, it's done,
you can't fix it. Right. And inthe future, you can't control

(13:07):
it, the only thing that you canhave control over that you can
fix is like how you areoperating right now, right in
the present moment. Somindfulness is all about
bringing that present momentback to us. And finally, you
have to be kind to yourwandering mind, as thoughts crop
up, your mind will wander off,just gently bring it back,

(13:32):
gently bring it back to thepresent moment, remind yourself
that the past is the past, andthe future is something that you
can't control. So again, thosesteps where you have to set
aside time and space, youobserve the present moment, as
it is no judgment, no judgment,you let them roll. When things
do go awry, or your mind startsto wander, just bring yourself

(13:56):
back to the present moment. Andthen just be kind to yourself,
be kind to your wandering mind.
Those are the five steps. And Iknow, it sounds super easy, very
simple. But it is never easy tosit with yourself for 10
minutes, there's going to be alot of things that come up for

(14:17):
you, especially if you'redealing with things. And so you
just need to keep working at itjust like anything else. Any
other routine, you're going tostart any other thing you're
going to change in your life.
It's going to take time, but thecompound effect of the results
will be staggering. And I knowthat sounds perhaps exciting,
perhaps scary. But if you godown the path of trying to

(14:44):
practice mindfulness, Iguarantee I don't guarantee much
in this world, but I guaranteewe'll find some benefits. So
that's the overarching part.
Let's dive into here. What doyou have to do to have just a
very simple meditation practice?
A simple mindfulness practice,and one you have to be
comfortable. So find a spot wetalked about the couch that I

(15:05):
sit in with a little bit offirmer back, because I do want
to be present. I don't want tohave a rounded back and slough
off into kind of dreamland. Soyou want to sit comfortably. And
then you want to notice like,what is your body doing right?
What are your legs doing? Arethey crossed? Are you sitting
kind of with your feet on thefloor, make sure you straighten
your upper body, right, that'sthat slouch back, you want to

(15:26):
straighten up a little bit. Thennotice what your arms are doing
and they crossed, you know, arethey tense, just let them fall
all naturally. Soften your gaze,you can even close your eyes, I
like to close my eyes, and thenfeeling your breath, right. I
even like to count my breathlike a three count in and a
three count out to get a reallygood pattern going. And then
notice when your mind wandersfrom your breath, when you're

(15:51):
not tracking your breath, andyour mind wanders, come back to
the breath counted again, startcounting again. Focus on your
breath behind that wanderingmind. Again, no judgment. And
then when you are ready, comeback, right. So let's say we're
doing a 10 minute meditation.
When you're ready, just gentlylift your gaze, right? If they

(16:13):
were, if they were close, startto move your fingers and your
toes, come back to the momentnotice sounds in your
environment, and then take alook and measure like what what
does your body feel like in thatmoment? What thoughts and
emotions are you feeling? Whatcomes up for you? What I've
learned most about mymindfulness practice is when I

(16:35):
am mindful with my own thoughts,I find that when I'm present
with others, that I start to bemore mindful in listening to
what's happening. Alright, sothis is this ultimately becomes
not just about you, obviously,you're becoming a better person
through this practice. But it'salso allowing you to become a

(16:56):
better person for others. And Ithink anytime we're talking
about improving ourselves, yes,that's the main goal. But it's
but when we focus on improvingourselves, it also allows us to
have better relationships withthose around us. So what I will
encourage you to do is just findtime again, find time during the
day to walk through thispractice. And you will find that

(17:17):
it'll start to loosen and gripon your mind. So that's my
recommendation. Ifeel like it's been a huge game
changer for me. I am still awork in progress. I think
everybody is a work in progress.
Nobody has done. There's no oneright answer. There's no one way
to say okay, I am better now.
No, we're all constantly workingon ourselves and we should be
working on ourselves. And andusing mindfulness to overcome

(17:41):
your monkey mind is just onetactic that you can consider. So
I'd love to hear how it's going.
You can drop me a note at Jason,at positivity on fire calm. I'd
love to know how the practice isgoing for you what's working,
what's not working? Do you haveany questions? Let's connect.

(18:02):
let's engage me happy to be ofhelp to you in your journey as
well. If you like today'sepisode, please do me a favor
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wherever you happen to listen,make sure you share this
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show, thank you for being heretoday, my friends. Your gift of

(18:24):
time listening to this show doesmean the world to me. And as
always, be well be happy, be youand until the next time may your
quest for positivity begintoday. For more on my positivity
quest follow me at underscore jy Ramsden on Instagram Tick Tock
and Twitter. If you likedtoday's episode, please give us

(18:47):
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