Since you saw the title of this mindfulness challenge this week, how many thoughts have rattled through your mind, five, ten, even fifteen? We have at least 60,000 thoughts that rattle throughout our minds each and every day.
The surprise as it turns out is that about 90% of those thoughts are the same thoughts. If we dump out thoughts that are not in our best and highest good – thoughts that have very low energy charges – thoughts that are negative – we free up a massive storage capacity in our energetic hard drive. With this new capacity we are magically able to do what it is that we want to do with our lives, to manifest our destiny so-to-speak. How then can we track the 60,000 thoughts that rattle through the hamster wheel in our minds each and every day?
The mindfulness challenge this week requires use of a little technology and a little preparation. My invitation is to set a timer at a set time sequence each and every day. Find a timer that might be on your cell phone or smart phone or watch. Perhaps you might want to use your a timer in your kitchen that can be set for a set number of minutes. Set the timer for 54 minutes.
Each and every time the timer buzzes (whether it’s your smart phone, cell phone, watch or timer from the kitchen) stop and note whether or not the thought that you are having when the buzzer rang is a positive thought, a neutral thought or a negative thought. Positive thoughts give you energy. Neutral thoughts are flat. Negative thoughts deflate your energy.
The other technology you’ll need for the week is a small notebook and pen or pencil that you can carry around with you in your pocket or somewhere on your body. Every time the buzzer goes off – every 54 minutes – all you have to do is stop and acknowledge what it was that you happened to be thinking at that particular moment. Do not bother recording the specifics of the thought. That will take too much time and is totally unnecessary.
All you want to do here is to acknowledge the thought you were having when the buzzer went off and then place a single mark on your notebook;a plus sign for a positive thought, a dash for a neutral thought and a minus sign for a negative thought. By the end of the day (if you have succeeded in recording your thought every 54 minutes) you are going to have anywhere from 8 to 12 counts of your thoughts and whether they were positive, neutral or negative. And of course, you will have a report for each day of the week!
Today, set it for 54 minutes. Feel free to alter the time lapse between when the buzzer goes off from one day to the next. Tomorrow set the timer to an hour and ten minutes or set it to 34 minutes. Set the timer to whatever time sequence seems appropriate. It depends in part on how often you are willing to be interrupted during the day. Or, you can just keep it set at 54 minutes each day this week.
Just remember to code each thought as positive, neutral or negative each and every time the buzzer goes off. One note of caution: Be sure to turn the timer off when you go to sleep because you don’t want to be waking up and coding your dreams.
This will take a bit of effort to prepare. It does take a little time in terms of actually doing the report. I promise however that it will give you incredible insights on the proportion of thoughts that are enriching your life force.
Have a fun time this week as you monitor the quality of your thoughts.
Robert
© Parkinsons Recovery