What Your Mind Cannot Do - A Guide to Productive Thinking
We use our minds, our thinking box, all day every day, don't we? My goodness, mine never shuts the chuff up; it just goes on and on and on all the time. Very rarely is it quiet, and the minute I notice it's quiet, I'm thinking again. I want to talk about how we misuse our minds, and what they are truly meant for.
Today, I want start by focusing on a few things your mind fundamentally cannot do, despite the fact that we try to make it do these things.
The Mind’s Futile Pursuit
Firstly, your mind cannot manage the past. It cannot resolve it or redo it. It cannot even remember the past very well at all, because the original memory was wrong right from the beginning. When a memory is created, it is filtered through what you already believe about the world. Every time you go back to that memory, you are effectively "redoing the memory" with another layer of beliefs and thoughts.
I spent a lot of time doing work on myself around the past, including counselling and inner child work under hypnosis. It was exhausting and ultimately nonsense, because the suffering I was experiencing was not from the past, but from the thoughts I was believing in the present moment. Poking around in the past is a lot of work for very little compensation.
The same is true for the future. The future is not real, and your mind cannot go there. Any time you go off into a story about what might happen, that creative process begins, and it's not based on truth. This affects how you behave in the present and can cause you to trip over yourself because you are not living in the now. It’s like walking whilst looking a long way off in the distance. You will end up standing in dog poo or tripping up. We all work better when we are focusing on the now, not the future.
The main thing to know about this is that your mind is really rubbish at doing things in the future, because you can only think about things in the future, you can’t actually do anything there.
Your mind also cannot read other minds. I know that might seem ludicrous to say, but that mental habit of assuming we know what is inside somebody else's head is not the truth. It keeps us stuck in a stressed, overwhelmed place. Similarly, your mind does not actually know about you. That voice in your head, the inner critic, is just a product of past conditioning; it is not your true self. All of these thoughts are a common misuse of the mind.
Your Emotional System as a Guide
We often misunderstand how our bodies are trying to help us. When we misuse our minds, going off into the past or the future, or thinking about ourselves and others, we feel stressed, overwhelmed, and stuck. When our thinking goes towards things our mind cannot do, our body gives us uncomfortable sensations. These might be sensations you try to avoid but what if that’s a misunderstanding.
In fact, your body’s emotional set up is a beautiful inner guidance system. From a three principles perspective, your emotions are part of an inner knowing that is always saying, "Pop this thinking down: it's hurting you and that’s why it does not feel good in the body". Our emotions have been demonised and even made to seem like diseases, but they are not. Our emotions are 100% of the time just letting us know that there might be some "hot burning thinking" that we might want to put down. Our emotions are our state of mind dashboard.
This is how we know what our mind cannot do. It is the power of our emotions as a guide, connected to an inner guidance system that is there all the time. When we are engaged in using our mind for what it cannot do, we feel that in our bodies.
Unveiling the Mind’s True Purpose
So, what is the mind good at? It is the most powerful force in the universe and is brilliant at creativity, productive planning, organising, and all things in the present moment. It is super helpful when it is anchored in the now, not in anxious worry.
It helps us take small, aligned steps. What we tend to do too often, however, is get sucked into overthinking, ignoring our intuitive nudges in favour of a whole heap of predictable nonsense. This is exhausting. Sometimes all it takes in those moments is to take a breath, pause, and let ourselves settle.
The Path to Discernment and Peace
As our minds settle, we become more discerning. We start to see the stories that fill our minds and begin to discern truth from them. The most powerful thing is to tune into how that feels. A clear mind discerns truth from stories, and we feel that in the body.
What we can see when we consider this via the three principles is that suffering is created by the belief that our emotions are a problem to solve. Peace is not a goal to chase; it is a reflection of alignment. It is what we feel when our thinking is aligned, whether we call that love or joy or contentment. All of the time our emotional state is letting us know when we are not there.
We are so lucky to have this gift, available to us. When we feel emotional discomfort in the body, it is a seeing; a quiet nudge to drop the tiring thinking we are holding on to. It is an invitation to have a nice, happy, joyful life, which is possible despite your circumstances.
This new way of seeing how your mind works might seem challenging, but there is a different way to experience life. If you are an ambitious individual who is on a mission to change the world but is feeling stuck in the cycle of overthinking and overwhelm, there is a path to greater ease. A Thriving Life Clarity Call is a space for us to explore how you can learn to use your mind more effectively and deepen your connection to this powerful guidance system. It is an invitation to rediscover your innate clarity and peace, allowing you to live a life that is both joyful and aligned.
