Over the coming weeks we will be sharing some of Patrick McKeown’s techniques via a new video series he has created. Read below for a transcript of the above video. Try out the techniques and let us know how you go.
What I hope to impart to you in these videos is the importance of monitoring and observing our thoughts and by doing so, of quietening our mind. This is very useful for anybody who feels like they are stuck in their head and constantly jumping from one thought to the next with little resolve in thinking.
In the Western world we are all encapsulated in thinking – we are constantly thinking. We think about situations that often have no applicability to what we are doing – in other words we might be doing one thing but we are thinking about something else. You could be lying in bed at night, you could be wrapped up in a lovely warm duvet, and you’re still running thoughts and stuff through your head.
It’s estimated that the average Western person runs about 50,000 thoughts through their minds a day, but it’s also estimated about 90-95% of those thoughts are repetitive and useless. So we are literally draining ourselves of energy by constantly being wrapped up in our inner minds.
Let’s consider our thinking.
There are two basic types of thinking: practical thinking and repetitive thinking.
Practical Thinking
Practical thoughts serve a purpose. For example, you have to decide to go somewhere so you plan a course of action, how you’re going to get there, what time you are departing at, what time you want to arrive at, who you’re going to meet etc.
Repetitive Thinking
The other type of thinking is repetitive, useless, often negative and fruitless thinking, the type that does nothing but drain us of energy and occupies most of our thought patterns. This is the type of thought that we want to take back control of.
By recognising the types of thoughts that we have, and recognising the effect and the influence they have on our state of mind, our state of health, and ultimately our quality of life, we take the first step to becoming free of the mind.
So the first step is literally to observe the mind and ask yourself, from a moment to moment basis, whenever you remember, to observe your thoughts. Don’t analyse your thoughts, don’t be critical of yourself if you’re thinking the same thing, just begin to notice your thought patterns.
Ask yourself the question, “what effect are my thoughts having on me?” asks yourself “are these thoughts serving any purpose?”, “are they helpful to me in any way or is it just repetition?”
Each time that thoughts come up, and there will be a variety of course, and they will be different thoughts, but each time ask yourself these questions. This will give you the momentum to step out of your thinking patterns.
One of the best ways to step out of your thinking patterns and to observe them is to connect with the breath, connect with the inner body, and bring your attention to the present moment.
I have found that the best way to bring my attention to the present moment is to use the breath to quieten my mind somewhat first, and to focus my attention on the inner body. Third, I focus on the present moment.
In time, and with practice, you end up doing all three simultaneously: paying attention to your breath, connecting to your inner body and bringing your attention to the present moment.
You can carry this into your way of life. For example, you can be walking across a room, where mind, body, time and room have merged together. In other words, you’re walking and simultaneously you’re in a state of no thought with your attention on your movements.
Consider an athlete or artist ‘in the zone’. The runner and the race have become one, the footballer and the game have become one, the painter and the painting have become one. There’s no boundary existing between the individual and the event.
This happens when the mind slows down and quietens to the point that there’s a merging of activities, and hours can literally go by without you noticing it because you’re in a state of effortless ease. Not only that but you’re in a state of gentle focus, of utmost concentration, giving 100% attention to the task at hand without continuous distractions. This is a great place to be.
My own personal experience is that I had a racing mind for many years. I was a person with perfectionist tendencies, always wanting to do the best, and driving myself through school and university, and then of course the next thing was I had to get a job, and all of the other responsibilities that life brings your way. I was constantly jumping ahead to the future.
For many years I literally reduced my life trying to get to the future and trying to reach end goals. I was constantly just thinking, thinking, thinking. I never realised the effect the thinking was having on me and also I never realised it was a habit I had formed.
This all comes back to the nature of the human mind. It was only when I started focusing on my breath, and on how my mind works, that the idea of ‘awareness’ started to come in to my life. I became aware of what was going on in my mind, and was not asleep to ‘thought’ anymore.
Later in these videos I’ll show you a way to breathe that optimises blood flow to the brain and in this manner brings more oxygen to the brain. When the brain is getting more oxygen, it becomes naturally calmer.
And that’s really the crux of it, there’s a certain way to breathe to cause constriction of the carotid arteries. In other words if we breathe in a certain way we reduce blood flow to the brain, and if we reduce blood flow, we also reduce oxygenation.
For now, let’s return to our conversation about thinking and how we think.
In the Western world, we’ve been conditioned to think. Western education is super, it teaches us to analyse; how to decipher; how to break information into tiny pieces.
However, if you teach somebody how to think, it’s just as important to teach them how to stop thinking.
Thinking intelligence is one form of intelligence, but there’s also creative intelligence, there’s intuitive intelligence, there’s happiness – that’s an intelligence –and it’s also a skill. Science knows that the more thoughts we have going through the mind, the less happy we are.
All you have to do is look at somebody with anxiety, look at somebody with stress, look at somebody with depression. Ultimately the problem is: they’re thinking too much.
The solution to this is to step out of thought, because you’ll never solve the analytical nature of the mind through analysing the mind.
Naturally, we want to get out of the head.
In Western society we are always trying to drown out our mental commentary, and we do that by drinking alcohol, by watching too much television and getting wrapped up in social media, so that we’re constantly being distracted.
What we’re doing is distracting ourselves to get away from the pain of our own thoughts, from the infliction of pain that our thoughts are giving us, but that’s not solving the problem.
Traditionally it was probably a bit better in that people went to church. In Ireland, for example, people went to mass, they said prayers, and in such a manner replaced one form of mental commentary with another. So instead of having their worries going through their mind, they replaced them with a prayer, with a mantra. The belief that there’s a higher power looking after them would have given them some comfort.
Nowadays the reality is that people are less involved with institutionalised religion and that’s all fine but we need to replace it with something. Quietening the mind, and bringing our attention into the present moment is one of the key ways of doing that. Really this is also the essence of spirituality.
Spirituality can be defined as the degree to which we are connected to life. If we are stuck in our heads all the time we’re so caught up in what’s going on in our mind that we don’t see what’s going on around us. For example, you could be taking a walk in a beautiful scenic place and not ‘seeing’ what’s there. You’re not feeling the sun on the back of your head, you’re not seeing the beautiful scenery around you, you’re not feeling the wind against your face, instead, you’re wrapped up in your problems.
We need to get away from that and step out of the mind. Even if we reduce thought activity by 10%, that will make us 10% happier because given that the vast majority of thoughts are negative and repetitive, if we even reduce them by a small amount, we’ll add that to our happiness.
I really started observing my mind back in 1997-98. This happened after I attended a talk, about something similar to what I am speaking of here, and when I came out of the talk and walked down Grafton Street (I was living in Dublin at the time), I felt that for the first time ever, my perception had changed. I actually saw the street. During the 2 hours of the talk, I had followed the instructions of the tutor and unbeknownst to myself I had learned to quieten my mind. When I came out into the street, I could see with a clarity that I’d never seen with before and that planted a seed within me.
The next morning I woke up and of course my mind was just as active again, however now I’d had a taste. A taste of what happens when you can debunk the layers of conditioning, even if it’s just for a short while. When you think of it, there are so many layers of conditioning that have been added to us, by society, by religion, by media, by family, by friends, by education – there are layers upon layers of conditioning. Every time that we look to analyse a question, our mind is operating through that filter of conditioning. Ideally, what we need to do is to ‘de-programme’ ourselves and tear down the walls of conditioning. Human beings are ‘programmed’, they are not free. Certainly in the Western world, human beings are not free. The cow in the field is free, the horse is free, the cat is free, the dog is free, but the human being isn’t free, because we’ve been subjected to all of these influences and our perception is mostly entirely based on these influences.
What do we mean by ‘conditioning’ and the effects of conditioning?
Just say we were to choose three individuals who are living in North America, Europe and the Middle East. If we were to present these individuals with a situation, based on their ‘conditioning’ and cultural ‘programming’, which all stems from their religious beliefs and societal influences, they would interpret and come up with their own perception based on their individual programming. Each individual will consider their thoughts and views as being correct, but their views have been influenced by their programming. The point I am making with this is that as individuals we take our thoughts so seriously, and we always seem to view our own thoughts as being the truth, but our thoughts have been formed based on the programming that we’ve been exposed to since our childhoods.
How do we know that what we are thinking is true?
As we have seen, our thoughts are based on our perceptions, and our perceptions are based on our conditioning, so when we have a point of view, it can sometimes be good to ask “is there truth in this?” and “how do I know if this is correct for sure?”
How do we help to dissolve the layers of conditioning that have been built up?
There are three ways to do it.
The Breath
Since time immemorial, mankind has been following the breath.
There is a way to breathe, as I said earlier, that helps not only to quieten the mind but also to get more oxygen to the brain. This is dealing with the issue from a physiological point of view.
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