Mental Clutter | iHanuman

iHanuman

Love, Service, Devotion, Yoga

Mental Clutter

Learning to decipher what is important in life is a key ingredient in creating a life of happiness, balance, and joy, and yoga trains us how to do this. Students usually come to yoga first for the physical benefits, although it soon becomes apparent that yoga has profound effects on the psyche as well. Yoga teaches focus and concentration, and over time these skills have the effect of reducing mental clutter. In class, for instance, instructors draw students' attentionto the specific muscles and actions that are important in doing a particular pose. An
often overlooked benefit of a home practice is that students begin to make these choices for themselves.
According to researchers we have about 50,000-60,000 thoughts a day, that's a whopping 1,000-5,000 thoughts per hour!! The mind gives us a running commentary on everything all day long, jumping from thought to thought. Yoga texts describe this phenomenon as the "chattering monkey-mind". In yoga class we cannot attend to every detail of every muscle in every pose, we have to choose what is important right now in this specific posture. In the same way, off the mat we must decide what is important and choose moment to moment where to direct our mental energy.
An example of the monkey mind in action is the indiscriminate and unconscious cell phone use that I see happening everywhere, especially on airplanes. As soon as the plane touches down some folks whip out their cell phones to report a blow by blow account: the plane landed, now they are taxiing up to the jetway, they are standing up and getting their luggage, and now they have to wait and then the line starts to move, etc. Is all that commentary really necessary? Is this a positive choice for focusing mental energy? Do we really want to spend our time obsessed with the insignificant ... like a character on the Seinfeld show?!
Another major contributor to the mental cacophony is the tendency of the mind to judge and have an opinion about everything. When we are in a hurry and impatiently waitingfor the person ahead of us in the grocery store line, the judging mind tends to provide a running negative commentary. For example: "Why is that person so slow in paying? Why didn't she get her money ready sooner? Why is she buying those unhealthy foods? Surely she is not feeding her kids that camouflaged candy for breakfast; she looks so unhealthy, she should not be eating so much junk, and look at that ice cream ... etc, etc..."
Instead the yogi with a trained mind has the awareness to quiet the monkey mind by directing her thoughts toward that which is more positive. "What a colorful shirt that woman is wearing; these are beautiful flowers I'm buying; I love the produce that was available today; the lettuce looks so fresh, etc." Or the yogi can simply choose to focus on standing with good posture and doing conscious deep breathing, keeping her mind quiet and centered.
What we discover when we observe our mental processes is that we are happier and more peaceful when we decrease mental clutterby consciously choosing to focus on what
matters and directing our thoughts toward what we find uplifting. This newfound awareness
and skill is a powerful way to stay in your heart, happy and joyful, so you can savor all the moments of your summer!

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