Unleashing the Power of the Mind

In this article, the reader is going to learn how the mind works - which is a key concept to understand. We’ve been born with this “mind” and no one necessarily thought us how to use it, how to think properly. So before we go any further, it’s important that we know what the mind is used for.

Business Guru David Allen states that:

Our mind is for having ideas, not for holding them

So first, we need to understand that the mind is for holding ideas. Second, we’ll learn how to use this to our advantage - and how we can essentially reprogram our mind. These are the two topics we’ll discuss so you leave better informed.

Function of the Mind

In the last article, we talked about how our souls were meant to soar throughout life, but instead, they tend to creep and crawl. Today we’re going to take a deeper study into why our soulds tend to creep and crawl. This study follows up on our previous conversation regarding the onion brain but with a deeper focus on the mind.

See the mind is such a powerful, interesting, marvelous processor that it’s been refered too as a super computer. While it does process, it’s more realistic to refer to it as more of a living organism; it is after all, a part of us. The onion brain analogy paints the “horse” as the mind and this is a more accurate description. Horses want to go one way, but it’s up to the rider to direct it where it should go.

This living orgasmic pheneomen known as the mind has been one of humanities greatest mysteries. We have books and entire disciplines dedicated to psychology and multiple ways that we can look at the mind. But the one way which seems to capture it best is what GTD Founder David Allen describes:

“Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them.”

Greek, Mimesis and Art

It’s been well known that man’s mind is meant to have ideas. One of the earliest concept of this is the concept of mimesis. This idea alludes to the fact that there’s a great mind, which has all these ideas, and those ideas are transfered to individuals minds.

I wrote about mimesis in an earlier article and it discuss how the Arts can be used to place ideas into its viewer’s mind. This concept goes to prove how one fact of the mind that’s been known for millenia is that the mind is the holding place for ideas.

So if we now know that our mind is soely for having ideas, theoretically, the next logical question to ask ourselves is, “what kind of ideas are within my mind?” Here is where the analogy of the onion brain returns because now we can see the different between us - our soul - and our mind, this organism which holds multuple ideas.

Who’s Idea is it?

Once we begin to evalute the ideas in our heads, we tend to realize that more times than not, these ideas - especially, ideas about ourselves - tend to be more negative, self-sabatoging.

This is evident within our millenial population. Within this group, I explore how the millenials hates to adult, not because they’re lazy - but that their minds are a reflection of the ideas that have been place there though the experiences of the indoctrinated program known as the education system.

Throughout our education system, we were taught certain skills for certain tasks, but this doesn’t necessairly teach us about life itself. -the complexity of life.  We don’t have a good repetoir of information within us so when life throws some complexity at us, we shirink, we fall - we creep, we crawl.

But fortunately, there is a way. If the mind is for having ideas, then surely we can be able to reprogram our mind for uplifting ideas. We’re going to have to re-educate our minds.

Solutions

CBT is a therapy in where indiviudals are thought how to cope with their thoughts. If our mind holds ideas, then these internal communication of these ideas are known to us as thoughts. Our mind processes these thoughts in words, but recall frome the onion brain analogy, we are not these thoughts.

To take hold of these thoughts before they affect us, here are three of the CBT recommendations that we should keep in mind:

1. Identify the negative thoughts

2. Realize the feelings we’re experience will change

3. Change those negative thoughts into positive realistic thoughts.

By recognizing that these thoughts are simply just our mind processing information, we can begin to take part in the active process of thinking. Thinking is an active process; it requires you to actively monitor and question your thoughts.

Doing this allows you to identify those thoughts and where they come from. Active thinking also puts in perspective that these feelings from these thoughts are temporary - they will change. Finally, when you’re actively thinking, you can then start to think positive, realistic thoughts.

Actively thinking, being conscious,  is where our soul comes into play. As stated, our soul is our purest self, full of all things positive, loving and hopeful. If we start to experience the feeling of fear and dread, this is where we ask ourselves, “why am I feeling this? why am I being held back?”

By doing this, we’re able to interject our soul - our true self into the picture and start to evaluate the ideas within our mind, and if we want to replace those ideas with positive ones.

Conclusion

Knowing that our minds have the ability to have and process ideas is a transformative stage in learning about this amazing gift that we have. If there was an end goal to shoot for, it would be the ability to use our minds as described in the following books: Thinking Fast and Slow and Blink.

The takeaway of both books is that our mind - this same mind that has been with humanity since the beginning of time - is an amazing resource that can be utilized to create civilizations. However, it can also be “programmed” is a way where it can self-sabatoge.

In both books, they focus on decision making and how to make better decisions. On one part, we have to let the intuitive nature of our mind decide, and in others, we must left the analytical aspect decide. Ultimately, once we train our mind, it can be our greatest resource. It can help us soar to new heights.

And that’s what we must do if we are to let our souls soar on this earthly plane. Our waking moments are filled ideas that take root and plant seeds. These seeds become thoughts and they can either help us soar, or tie us down to where we creep and crawl through life.

It’s up to us to reflect on our soul - who we truly are - and engage these thoughts. Those thoughts that aren’t life-affirming or align with our core, we must examine those thoughts and ultimately the ideas that sprouted them.

Our mind is for having ideas. This fact has been one of history’s greatest mysteries. And now you have the key.