Rebooting Your Mind

All our mobile phones today have a lot of apps in them. Most of these apps are automatically opened whenever we connect our phones to wifi internet. When this happens, you will noticed that suddenly you have lots of notifications from all different apps informing you about current news or simply asking your permission for updates. Suddenly your phone has all these tasks that need to be completed and its performance slows down dramatically. Sometimes it may even hanged if it ran out of memory.

Our mind is a bit like our phones. Sometimes we find that a lot of thoughts appear out of a sudden in our mind as if we have switched on our minds' wifi reception and we are receiving all these information from all directions. There are both positive and negative thoughts appear at the same time. During times like these, we find ourselves powerless and seemingly unable to get anything done. It is as if the end of the world and we can't do anything about it. So how can we overcome this problem? Before we try to solve the problem of our minds, let's see how we troubleshoot the slow performance of our mobile phones first.

When your phones are overloaded with tasks to complete, there are basically three simple steps you can take. First open up the task manager and end all those apps that you don't need it at the moment. Then you can try clear your phones' RAM memory. If the above two steps fail, you can always reboot your phones. You will find that when all these unnecessary apps are closed, your phones perform faster and much more efficient.

We can do the same to our minds. Instead of keep all these worries in our heads, focus on those that we could do something about it right now. Don't worry too much about the future because it is uncertain. Only concentrate on the things that we have control right now. Start taking action instead of remaining in your mental worrying state. Once you start doing something, you would have much clearer vision of the overall picture and it doesn't appear to be so gloomy and doom after all. After one task is completed, we simply forget about it and move on to the next task just like how we end the apps in our phones. Soon, more and more tasks will be completed and our minds are now not so crowded with thoughts. 

If after taking some actions you still find yourself worry sick and remain in a negative state, then you should 'reboot' your mind by retreating to meditation. Choose a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for at least half an hour and start meditating. Think of nothing as your main goal is to seek peace in your mind. To say that you are seeking peace is less accurate because you should be free from doing anything at all and looking for peace is an exercise in itself. So just let things be for the next half an hour and simply enjoy the peace and quietness that you would experience. After that half an hour, you will find your mind completely refresh as if it has been massaged by invisible hands.

So next time when you try to improve the performance of your phone, don't forget about your mind.

We Are The Source Of Our Stress

Road rage is a common scene in cities throughout the world. Even in first world country like Australia, you would expect that commuters are more educated and behave in a more civilized way but the contrary happens to be true.

I stopped my car at an intersection waiting for the opportunity to turn left. I saw to my right the oncoming traffic just got there green light and I know that I would have enough time to make the left turn because the oncoming car was still at least 50 feet away. As soon as I made that left turn, the first oncoming car suddenly accelerated his car to make it looked like he almost hit me and made a drastic right turn to overtake me. I could then see from his rear mirror that he was shouting and cursing in his car as to why I made the left turn. He continued his restless driving for as long as I could see him. With all his urgency, he still needed to stop at several traffic lights and he wasn't moving any faster as he wished to. To me, he was creating unnecessary stress for himself over a trivial incident. He could have just let me made my left turn as he was still far away from any major collision. Instead he just wanted to show that no one should intercept his way while he was moving. 

In this fast paced society of ours, people always try to get ahead of everybody else in whatever they do. There is never a sense of community where you look out and care for each other. Everyone is looking solely after themselves. There is no love and compassion in our modern world. You see all the people go about their daily lives without paying attention to what is happening around them. And the convenience and luxury of mobile phones worsen the situation. People are now having a relationship with their iPhone than with real people.

Knowing that stress comes from within ourselves, we should cultivate the habit of watching closely our emotions and keeping them in check constantly. Most illnesses comes from negative emotions that are accumulated within our body. The prerequisite of a healthy body is a healthy mind. 

We can't stop negative emotions from creeping into our mind every now and then. But we can just let them pass without indulging ourselves in them. Whenever a negative thought appear in your mind, look at it as if you are watching birds flying across the big blue sky. Watching them passing by your vision and disappearing out of sight. Gradually you will be able have a much better control of those negative thoughts and experience peace in your mind. 

Once you have mastered the control of your negative emotions, you can start to feed your mind with healthier and positive thoughts. But you must never reject those negative thoughts in the first place because they are part of you. Just accepting that they are there without passing any judgement and you would feel more comfortable with all the bad things that you experience in life.

Don't blame others for your stress because nobody has control over your mind and body other than yourself.    

Keep Life Simple

Most believe that technology has made our lives more convenient and enjoyable. Imagine an evening without electricity or trying to contact your love ones without a phone. Especially with regards to communication, now we can instantly talk or send messages to our friends all over the world via the internet without having to pay a hefty sum for it. These conveniences were not possible just 20 years ago and that shows us how advance technology has progressed.

But are we much happier with all these luxurious conveniences? The answer is sadly NO. Nowadays I see people are having closer relationships with their mobile phones than their human partners. In public transports, cafes and even office, they can't seem to pull their eyes off their mobile screens. If there is a message coming through when they are talking to you, then they would excuse themselves and attend to those messages. The very technology that was designed to create a global village has in fact separate us apart and making the fundamental physical relationship less intimate.

And what about Facebook? Just take a look at your Facebook's newsfeed now and see what you get. They are all junk information and most of them are untrue. But we love checking our Facebook all the time just to see what other people's are posting. Or constantly checking minute by minute how many likes we have generated so far with the photos that we just posted.

All these extra activities are taking up too much of our time and they are eating into our lives. I remember when I was very sick earlier this year, I completely detach myself from any social media because there were just too much negativity from them. Technology didn't help me stay connected but disturbed the serenity of my life instead. '

I found it much more peaceful just to hold onto a book and read it. I got so much fulfillment and productivity out of it. Every time when I read, I feel that I'm learning and growing. That I'm not wasting the time that is given to me. You should know by now that our existence here is impermanent and there is an expiry date to it. It is indeed crucial for us to cherish every moment that we still have and do something meaningful for us and others. 

You don't have to climb the Everest or build the tallest building in the world to prove to others that your life is meaningful. Meaningful life comes from all the little things along the way. You can definitely feel it when you have done something meaningful. 

I hired two contractors to pave my driveway yesterday. I have a little chat with them and found out that they are also from the same country. They are just been here for two months and have never stop working 7 days a week. Furthermore, they are only paid $110 per day by their boss instead of the standard hourly rate that is common in Australia. I thought that was terrible, their boss must be really taking advantage of them. Most new migrants are often taken advantage of by the locals. I know that because I have also experienced it personally when I first came here. Most people thought Australia is a compassionate and friendly country but the reality is unfortunately quite the opposite. You would only feel their compassion and friendliness if you have money.  

So I feel very bad for these two guys and I offered to cook them a nice hot noodle soup. And when I brought the two bowls of noodle soup to them, I simply felt so good. I was happy to send loving kindness to two complete strangers. I felt I have done something meaningful that afternoon.

If we consistently perform these simple act of kindness to everyone we meet, then our lives will be much more fulfilled and we are a happier person. Simplify our lives, get rid of all the junk information that are being fed to us on a daily basis. Watch less news because you don't learn much from them other than knowing about other people's mishaps.

Be An Observer

All of us will never stop facing challenges in our lives. Whether it is our relationship, financial or career, there are always the ups and downs. You will slowly notice (if you haven't already) that all the problems we face in lives are created by people. There maybe someone complaining behind your back, your spouse maybe blaming you for all the hazard in your relationship without giving any credit to the things that you have done right. The list is endless.

If we take it personally and ruminating that it is unfair that you were thought of in a bad way by other people, then we magnify the problem that we already have and our emotion goes straight downhill. Instead we should look at the situation as if it is a stage and we are just an observer watching a show behind the curtain or in the audience seat. Everyone that is involve in the argument are there on stage. We even see ourselves on that stage in the argument. To be an observer means that you detach yourself and see the whole situation from the outside. Using a third person point of view, you are just another person in that show. That way, you don't take things too personally and instead have a better control of your emotion, you are simply enjoying the show.

This exercise can even help those who are suffering from panic attacks. When someone is having a panic attack, they are experiencing shortness of breath and thoughts of them dying constantly come into their mind. When the mind starts to feed negative inputs and warnings that there could be a fatal consequences, their conditions spiraling downwards and they are frozen in fear. That is what happen when you put yourself in the epicenter of the situation that a minor discomfort in your body could be reinterpreted by the mind as something life threatening. 

The observer exercise is a good technique that can help people who are suffering from panic attacks to gradually come out of their fear and take back the control of their lives. When the next panic attack happens, instead of thinking that they are going to die, be an observer and see that there is just someone having a discomfort in his breathing. See that person (which is yourself) slowing down his breath and starts to relax his body. His body gradually rises up, his breathing slowly returning to normal and the panic attack is eventually gone.

When you see yourself from the observer's point of view, there won't be thought of dying because you are not involve. You just see someone anxious and trying to catch his breath (everyone's breathing will go faster when they are anxious so it is absolutely normal). Usually panic attack just lasts for a few minutes and it is gone. It is important to know that it is never permanent. 

If you could survive panic attacks, then all the other problems that you face in life such as being scolded by your boss or spouse seems trivial and unimportant. You are not here to please everyone because your health is the most important thing of your life.