In ‘The secret’ I found a technique to become mindful that is worth exploring.
They claim two things, and I agree on neither :-), but I think what they say is worth exploring.

1)It is impossible to monitor all of ones thoughts.

This one is obviously false. The argument goes that we have thousand of thoughts every day and that it is impossible to monitor them all. I already stated in my previous post that many Buddhist monks do this every day. Off course, we are no Buddhist monk, but it proves that it can be done. And when you read the books in the tradition of ‘Being in the present moment’ (for example by Eckhar Tolle), they essentially say the same (actually, there is no real difference between ‘mindfulness’ and ‘being in the now’, except for the naming). So it is more than possible, albeit not easy to do.

2)All emotions stem from a thought

This is a tricky one. My personal experience tells me that this is very often the case that an emotion has a precursor thought, but not always. But maybe I am not fast enough to always see the thought.
On the other side, in the gnostic tradition (see gnosticweb and gnosticteachings) tells us that emotions can be separated. As I am a student of this tradition and I value their teachers very highly, I will believe them (for now).

In conclusion, they say, watch your emotions and you will know your thoughts. And emotions are not as quickly bypassing as thoughts, so you have a better chance at seeing them. Here I can relate.
So with hem, I would recommend an extra mindfulness practice: regularly check your emotional state!
If done persistently, you will see that it becomes a habit and finally it will become effortless.

This should improve the practice of mindfulness greatly, but also has the advantage of learning you a lot about your habitual emotional state. As it is often not easy to discover your habitual emotional state as you are so identified with it, this little practice should show the way.
You might be surprised to discover what you are thinking of mostly, I know I did.

Be well. Be rich. Be great.

If you like this post, feel free to bookmark it. I would really appreciate it.

Hide Sites

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!