“The quality of our minds determines the quality of our lives.” — Mark Manson
The most common path choice on the journey to a healthier mind is meditation. Usually, when one decides this, it is for the benefit of oneself. Little do we know, though, the more we persevere in this practice, it can have far greater impacts on our lives than we could’ve ever imagined.
I’d say that I’ve been consistent with my practice for about a year now. It all began with a goal to ease my angst and worries throughout all areas of my life but has given me a life that I never sought to obtain.
With achieving mindfulness, it’s not so much as to completely rid of a negative aspect to our mentality, rather to understand it. When meditating (or mere practice of simple mindfulness in everyday life), we must allow our thoughts to come in and go freely. Attempting to control or force one away will only yield the opposing result of diminishing. We must become aware of the thought and be opened to understanding it; what emotions are being fueled by this, how am I measuring myself to others, is this thought useful? Once we can understand a thought deeper than surface level, we arrive at our core values and what we admire most. Oftentimes, at first, we won’t like or even want to confess to these truths to be our reality but accepting is one of the first and fairly important steps to a healthier mind.
The more we question and allow these thoughts to dissolve, the stronger we become in resisting the urge to engage with them, and soon, they will subside all together along with all that has accompanied them (emotions, values, etc.).
The brain is deemed as a muscle, and just as when you go to the gym five days a week, it becomes stronger in various ways. For example: In the brains of those who are exceptional at math, they contain a higher quantity of grey matter. Exceeding the average amount of grey matter signals one who is not only great at math, but also in control of their movements, memory, and emotions. If only I didn’t fail geometry twice, I’d have greater control over my sensitive tendencies! But if one of these mathematicians were to stop involving themselves with numbers, this grey matter would soon decrease to its average quantity over time as another muscle would if an athlete stopped going to…
