Greater Mind Integration

Pushing ourselves physically can clear, relax, and quiet the mind. As a person who often has about 7 equally demanding trains of thought going simultaneously, I understand the value of any mind quieting methods.

Exercise offers opportunities to observe the difference between listening to the body and listening to negative self-talk. For instance, when I’m running and want to slow down, feeling that I can’t keep up the pace, I wonder if I want to slow down out of respect for my body’s actual limitations, or if I’m reacting to thoughts that are just old stories about what I can and can’t do.

I also notice how exercise can get me out of my head.  I’ve been using an audio running program with a running coach to motivate me through training sessions. In today’s run, I continue to notice how I tend to slow my pace when negative self-talk pops into my head, and how challenging it is to push through and keep going when negative self-talk tells me I can’t. This is a distilled version of how we are slowed down by self-limiting beliefs all the time.

Sometimes, when these thoughts popped in, I gave myself permission to go at a slower pace. I reminded myself that, even if I was going slower than the audio “coach” was telling me to go, every step was still a step forward. I encouraged myself by remembering that I’m not competing against anyone else, and not even “competing” against myself.  I’m using these sessions as an opportunity to be in the moment, and in the body. I’ve been wanting to have more time in the day, and running definitely makes time go be slower.

Many people enjoy the competitive aspects of athletics. But competition isn’t motivating to everyone. Is it possible to enjoy athletics without feeling like you have to be in competition? Competition is fine, but exercise can also be a way to use the effort of the body as a tool to practice mindfulness, and detach from self-limiting thoughts.

If we avoid challenging ourselves in this way, I could probably avoid noticing those particular kind of self-defeating thoughts. They would stay below the surface of consciousness, but still have a subliminal affect. The process of pushing oneself in exercise pushes those limiting beliefs up to the surface.

The trick is to observe the thoughts and keep moving; not to identify with them or agree that they are true.

I think it’s useful to challenge the body when you’re doing spiritual work. With a spirit of self-acceptance and self-care, not to punish or alienate the body, we can to learn about ourselves through experiencing what we can do with our bodies.  

What’s involved in challenging the body, can also be applied to our efforts to develop spiritually. The past couple of days I felt annoyed with myself because I’ve been keenly aware of how I fall short of my aspirations to be loving and non-judgemental. As I try to expand my ability to be loving toward everyone, the more clearly I see that I’m not.

This can create a self-defeating spiral, because it leads to self judgement and non-loving thoughts toward the self. Whatever we think toward ourselves, what we refuse to forgive ourselves for, we will judge and refuse to forgive in others. So, round and round it goes.

In the same way that pushing my limits with running shows me the contrast between my physical goals and my actual physical fitness, pushing through my limits in being loving and forgiving, shows me the contrast between those goals and how I’m actually feeling. Also, in the same way, if I wasn’t challenging myself to expand my capacity to be loving, I wouldn’t realize how I fall short.

It’s a waste of time and energy to focus on what I haven’t yet accomplished, because it only slows us down, weighs us down, and makes us want to conjure up justifications for how and why these aspirations aren’t really important anyway.

Just like we don’t always run as fast or as far as we can imagine, we shouldn’t be surprised when we’re not automatically as loving and non-judgmental as we aspire to be. It will require regular practice to increase my speed and endurance in loving kindness, just the same as it is when I’m increasing those things in my physical fitness.

As I try to raise the vibration of my consciousness to Love, I quickly become aware of my lower vibrational habits of judgment, criticism, and anger. I notice them due to the sharp contrast between the two vibrations. This is just like the way my goal of completing a running program shows me the sharp contrast between my goal to run faster and farther, and my impulse to go slower and shorter.  

Both physical exercise and spiritual development create a vibrational contrast between one’s current state of “fitness” and the goal to expand one’s capacity.  The contrast between higher and lower vibrational frequencies, both trying to occupy the same space, causes friction. If my body has a habit of being more sedentary, and then I begin an exercise program, I’m introducing a higher frequency into a lower frequency. I’m likely to interpret this friction as physical discomfort, or pain.

That’s true in the exercise world, and it’s also true and the spiritual world. This is true in the mental world, too, as the mind is trying to learn new things it can create feelings of stress and tension. In every arena of consciousness, Mind or Body or Spirit, it’s this contrast between the habitual lower vibrational frequency with the introduction of a higher frequency that causes discomfort. As we make efforts to expand our capacity in any of these arenas, we experience contrast and friction between these two patterns, and that’s going to be uncomfortable. The discomfort can be experienced as physical, mental, or emotional pain. Realizing that this is what is happening may make it easier to avoid attaching to the discomfort, so it won’t slow us down too much as we move forward.

Whether your current focus is on developing your Mind or Body or Spirit, you can generalize what you learn in one arena to the other two arenas. Because, they really are All One.