My Mind Used To Be My Enemy

Have you ever heard the sayings:

• 'My mind is like a bad neighborhood; I shouldn’t go there alone’

• 'Treat my mind like a landlord would treat his property, don’t let anybody live up there rent free’

• 'My mind is my enemy’

When I started my spiritual development, I heard people stating these ideas, these disbeliefs, as facts. Some people who seemed highly advanced still communicated in this way. They would talk about their dependence on certain activities – otherwise, their emotions and day would get completely out of whack.

I don’t consider that any great deal of balance.

I don’t continue in my development to this day because I’m sick. I choose to grow today because this life is the best I have ever known, in my entire lifetime. I have been this way for years.

I continue to listen to people who are ahead of me and study whatever I can find that is beneficial to me, and my mind.

After a few months of continuous development, I realized something vitally important: if ‘my mind is my enemy’ then how am I still here, pursuing happiness and the good things in life? I saw in that moment that I needed to befriend my mind.

But, I didn’t know how to befriend this mind of mine, nor did I particularly care for what I saw when I paused to look at what was going on in between my two ears.

You see, my mind used to be like a freaking machine gun of negative thoughts.

In one phase of my journey, I had heard that the way to combat these negative thoughts was to substitute them with positive thoughts. Despite investing a lot of energy combatting the negative mis-thoughts, I just could not come up with sufficient positiveness to outweigh the negativity.

That’s the type of mind that had been conditioned into me.

I was studying on a daily basis. I would read, at least three times every day, this line that instructed me to substitute those negative disbeliefs with positive thoughts. Each time, I would fret, ‘what am I going to do? How am I going to do this?’

Then, one day, I witnessed the controller and computer operator for my business attempt to log the inventory (if I can avoid it, I don’t use computers. That’s one reason I hired employees!).

After her input, the computer displayed ‘deny entry’ in the right hand corner of the screen. I looked at that response, astonished. I said ‘well, heck, if it works on the computer, maybe it’ll work with me!’

Every time I noticed a negative thought, I replied ‘deny entry.’ Given that I was attempting to dodge the machine gun’s barrage of bullets, you can properly imagine that my days became ‘deny entry, deny entry, deny entry’ all day long. After a couple weeks, even this mantra of ‘deny entry’ felt like a bullet trying to kill me. I was trying to kill the world. It was just horrible.

But, like all good things (and all bad things!), when I persist, I succeed.

Even though I still don’t control my mind today, I manage it very well. I have gone though the most horrendous things during the past 38 years – and I’ve come out the other end almost unscarred. That’s truly beautiful.

The things that had troubled me for years – even those secrets I would take the grave – now in their worst moments might trouble me for a minute. That’s such a pleasure.

To get here, all I had to do was first find someone who had what I wanted and was willing to guide me there. When I was a spectator in courses and these blogs etc, I was receiving a lot of information, but no knowledge. Because I couldn’t apply anything to my life.

If I’m in class and I want to learn, I will set in the front row. When the teacher is speaking, I will pay attention to her face. If I’m not looking, I will get caught up in my own mental excursions.

To develop, I must remain concentrated and consistent with a dedicated program of action. I’m here today because this place is the most beautiful I have ever been to. It’s a miracle that for me, I can know that my life has now been over 50% happy.

That happiness is the result of my ongoing dedication to my development, and GOD – and to me seeing that I had been a jerk and choosing something different.

Life is so easy when I follow and I connect with someone who knows what they are doing. Now, I have become one of those who knows what he’s doing.

Connect with me today and let’s how easy and happy your life can become.

Talk soon,

Richar