How to Live at the Speed of Life
(Without a bunch of effort and struggle)
Hey Rebel,
This week’s podcast, ‘How to Slow Your Mind Down’ accompanies today’s riff…
How to Live at the Speed of Life
(Without a bunch of effort and struggle)
For most of my 20s, I felt like I was trying to live around 50% faster than the actual speed of life.
And it came at a cost.
As my mind whirred and chirred, dragging me along with it…
the familiar feeling of being caught up and stressed out seemed like a pretty constant companion.
And in a modern world that seems like it’s constantly accelerating, it would be easy to assume that living a scattered life is the new norm.
But what if it doesn’t have to be?
This week’s riff is about a radical shift…
Slowing your mind, not by controlling it, but by changing where you’re looking.
Here’s how to step off the mental treadmill and return to stillness…
Thoughts and Their Babies
My favourite Zen proverb goes like this…
Let go or be dragged.
I love it because it so perfectly describes how life used to be for me.
Boy oh boy, did I used to feel like I was being dragged around by my thoughts.
I’ve noticed over the years, that once a thought has convinced us it’s important, it starts having ‘thought babies’.
It usually starts as a single worry or anxious thought that just pops into our head.
And the next minute, that one thought has seemingly employed all the cast and characters for an Oscar-worthy mind movie.
The whole thing is playing out in 4D…
And then the freakin’ orchestra starts!
This isn’t a new thing - There’s a reason the Buddhists have called it the ‘drunken monkey mind’ for centuries.
And I know from personal experience that this ‘multiplication’ of thoughts can seem unstoppable at times.
And it’s also clear (to those of us who have investigated) that we’re not in control of which thoughts happen to pop into our heads in any given moment.
So what to do when we’re not in control?
Stop Fighting Your Mind
I’m smiling as I write this, but…
I used to think that more thinking would solve my overthinking problem.
Like fighting my mind with more ‘mind’ was the logical way forward.
And it was innocent, of course.
I didn’t know any different.
But mind only leads to more mind.
It feeds on itself.
And then tells you it’s still hungry.
You can’t satiate the mind.
But you can stop feeding it.
How the Mind Gets Fed
I’ve been enjoying talking about the ‘mindstream’ recently.
Because the mind can really feel like a stream of thoughts.
With its own current.
Sometimes it’s slower, sometimes faster, and our physiological system speeds up or slows down accordingly - if we’re identified with it.
The truth is that (in actuality) we’re only ever living at the speed of life.
You’ve never been anywhere other than here.
In this endless moment of NOW.
But if the current in the mindstream is dragging us along, it can feel like we’re speeding along with it.
If our mind is running at 20% faster than life, it feels like we’re a little sped up.
At 50%, it starts getting frantic.
At 100%, we’re at double speed and we start to burn the fuck out.
But much like a river that has its own current, it’s only a problem if you’re actually in the stream.
And being attached to, identified with, or believing in our thinking, is how we end up in the stream and in the current.
It’s also how the current builds.
It’s how we innocently, but reliably, move from 20% to 50%…
to 100%.
And how we go from thriving to drowning in our own thinking.
Looking away from the mindstream is, of course, a metaphor, but it’s a powerful one.
Change Where You’re Looking
So if the mind has its own momentum, and we’re not in control, the one thing we can do is look in a different direction.
Have you ever stared at a moving screen for long enough that when you look away your vision is still warping and moving?
But then after 30 seconds or so, the world calms down and stills again.
It’s sort of like that.
In an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.
Pico Iyer
Looking in a different direction could come in a number of different forms…
Getting your socks off and noticing the feel of the ground beneath our feet
Closing your eyes, being still, and asking how it is you know you still have a body
Focusing on the breath consciously
Dropping your attention into the body
Being with the ‘feeling’ of BEing
Being with the sense of I AM
Touching a tree and noticing the energy/texture that’s present
Noticing the silence from which all sounds come and go
Reflecting on the intelligence behind life, instead of the story in your head
Laughing at yourself and all your problems and lightening up for a moment
Noticing when you’re ‘spiralling’ and just… stop for a moment.
Essentially, taking a break from all the shit that’s been running about in your head, and look towards slowing down, just for a minute.
…
…
…
Of course, all of these ideas are ‘micro options’ in service of a ‘macro’ insight.
You don’t have to believe all that shit in your head.
There IS another way.
YOU are not your mind.
YOU are the one within which the mind appears.
Do one thing this week
So this week, why not focus on something different for a moment?
Any time you notice you’re caught up…
Look somewhere else.
Do whatever makes sense to you.
Turn your hippie up to max and walk through the grass barefoot - literally ground yourself.
Or do whatever you feel called to do.
But look in a different direction.
Start experimenting with what works for you.
Falling In Love With BEing
Here’s the truth…
When we fall out of love with our stories and fall in love with BEing, we will notice more and more of a settling in our lives.
When we stop fighting the noise with more noise and look towards silence, we will find ourselves taking a breath with more and more ease.
When we notice the simple, yet wonderful, feeling of being home, we’ll naturally want to spend less and less time on a shit holiday in our head.
Life handles itself just fine when we’re not in the stream.
The mind keeps on minding.
Thoughts keep on appearing.
But if we mind our own business…
The business of the mind slows down.
And there’s nothing like living at the speed of life.
Big love,
Sam
PS please do like, comment and share if you enjoyed today’s riff 🙏. It’s always lovely to know you’re here with me!
PPS don’t forget to check out this week’s podcast…
Thanks, Sam--I spend WAY too much time in my overactive monkey-mind thoughts, so these are great reminders. :)
Thank you for this, I have been feeling like my mind has been in control too much lately and it just leads to unhappiness. Great suggestions for slowing down and being.