Taking some time to sit, open your mind, and allow thoughts to wander in might be more productive than you’d expect.
People don’t realize how profitable, productive and powerful it is to sit and think.
According to research, people underestimate how much they would like to spend time alone with their thoughts with nothing to distract them.
Research suggests that individuals have difficulty appreciating how engaging thinking can be.
That could explain why people prefer keeping themselves busy with devices and other distractions, rather than taking a moment to reflect.
We live in an age where “doing” is more important than “being.”
Unfortunately, we live in a world with information and action overload. We have to move forward, doing something, even if it is a distraction. It’s easy to ‘kill time.’
When you wake up, you can check your phone rather than immerse yourself in your internal free-floating thinking.
Why?
This way of thinking will be boring, a waste of time, and will not produce anything.
Free thinking is an opportunity to engage yourself without reacting, distractions or without input from the outside world.
Our actions tend to be motivated by the fact that we find more benefits than drawbacks. And we must find more benefits in action.
So let me give you a stack of benefits to sitting, contemplating, and being.
- Connection to your body
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- To contemplate physical actions, sensations, and feelings – what are they telling you?
- To be conscious of your legs, arms, hands, and feet and create awareness of the vehicle you are in. And have gratitude for the miles it has carried your soul.
- To acknowledge your breath and focus on the here and now, not focused on the past or present.
- Connection to your feelings
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- To allow both physical and mental feelings to surface without attachment to how you should or shouldn’t be feeling.
- To contemplate your feelings as they arise, what are they trying to reveal to you?
- To acknowledge your feelings (it’s ok to feel by the way – you are human).
- Connection to your mind
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- To empty the mind, and take away distractions to see what you are thinking and feeling.
- To contemplate the thoughts that arise (we watch them, but we are not in them).
- To allow the free flow of thoughts and see where the river of the mind and thinking take you.
- Connection to your world around you
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- To contemplate where are you in life
- To create space for awareness of what you would love and reflect is your life in alignment with this or not?
- To allow time to reconnect with yourself so you can go out into the world as the fullest you.
It is in the space in between that allows a whole state of mind. You attend, intend, and allow thoughts and ideas to flow.
The idea of sitting and contemplating can be twofold.
- To empty the mind
- To observe the mind
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- To empty the mind
Consider our minds to be water and our thoughts to be multi-coloured. Water is colourless, odourless, and shapeless. When we add colour to the water, the water is no longer clear, but swirls with the colour of the dye. The more colours, the water turns black. And the mind becomes endarkened with thoughts.
(When we apply the DeMartini Method, we dissolve thoughts and get to your true state of being. The closer we are to our soul, the clearer the messages).
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- To observe the mind
Sometimes we go into “fix it mode,” where something arises in our mind and we go to resolve it. If we take time to contemplate and allow the wandering of the mind, we can allow deeper thoughts to arise.
It is not attaching to your thoughts or trying to direct them, but allows you to see what comes up. Imagine it like seeing the clouds go by and you are on the soft grass watching them. Observing the shapes and seeing them change and pass.
So for me, I am investing a weekend next weekend with a client, who is now a close friend, in emptying the mind, so that I can master plan my life without distraction and the influence of others’ decisions.
So, are you up for some quiet contemplation?
Leadership Coach & Master Certified DeMartini Method Facilitator
BAppSoSc (Counselling)
Maximum Growth
One on one & group coaching available
