Reframing and Direction of Thoughts

The next thing after you become aware of your limiting thoughts or beliefs is to shift them towards positivity and expansion. What it really means is reframe the underlying emotions and direct them for your growth and harmony.

In order to move from negative to positive, you need to learn to look at the big picture vision.  Because most of the times, when our mind has negative tendencies, it is perceiving threat.

By default, mind develops the defensive attitude and hence we find it so difficult to change our old habits by stepping out of our comfort zones.

The reality is that we must know how to override this old mental conditioning so we can consciously create certain level self-mastery over our thoughts and emotions.

How to reframe your thoughts?

1. Recognize that each thought is carrying the seed of subconsciously fed information which might now be relevant or helpful in your current reality.
2. As you notice a limiting thought, question its validity. Be curious about your own beliefs which are leading to creation of these thoughts.
3. Now, open your mind to new perspectives and look for possible variations of the limiting thought and reframe it for a positive outcome. A few examples:
   1. What am I trying to achieve here?
   2. What specifically do I want from this outcome?
   3. Is this decision getting me closer to my outcome? Or is it pulling me away?
   4. Let’s pretend as if there is a solution to this problem. Where could I search for answers?
4. As you recognize that you do have some possibilities that can help you step up and do things differently, then don’t wait further. Take baby steps and build new ways of thinking and doing. Slowly, your mind will get trained to look for solutions in problems and opportunity in crisis.

Conscious Content Consumption

How many hours have you spent doom-scrolling on Twitter or Instagram in the past week? If you haven’t already, chances are now is a good time to learn a little more about conscious content consumption and how it can help your mental health and well being.

How you consume media content is a very important element that affects your life choices, experiences and your growth because it directly affects your mental activity and condition your mind to build pattern of behaviors.

What we feed in our mind is directly reflected in our life. So, it is extremely important for you to feed your mind with the content that is going to help you elevate your consciousness and create a higher-level mind.

Most of the people are impulsively watching the content as they get addicted to the need of instant gratification. This impulse pulls people into that trap of scrolling the feeds of Instagram, watching random videos and feeding their mind with aimless consumption.

Now, the repercussion is not only the wastage of time but also the useless information storage in your subconscious mind. The quality of your subconscious mind is the number determining factor of your success in life.

If your mind is fed with information that creates conflict, emotional turbulence, instability and fear then it is extremely hard for you to explode your truest potential and lead a magnificent life.

You need to be mindful about both what you consume and how you consume it. It also means focusing on fully engaging on the media consumption while you do it, rather than using it to multitask or to distract yourself from other feelings or challenging situations.

How to adopt Conscious Content Consumption?

1. Recognizing that your mind is a sponge and whatever you are absorbing in it lay the foundation of your thoughts, beliefs and emotions. Becoming sensitive about your mind and what you feed in it is the first step.
2. Your personality is shaped by the content you consume. Just like your body reacts to different food types and usually works very well with healthy and nutritious food, in the same manner, your mind becomes stronger with positive, enriching and soulful content.
3. Establish clear choices on the type of content that you’d like to watch based on how you feel after you go through that piece. Notice how you felt in your mind and heart. Did you feel contracted or elevated?
4. Set limits on the timeline of the content that you like to entertain yourself with. If you feel 2 hours should be your limit for the day, then divide it into morning and evening.
5. Make fun content be your reward after accomplishing something significant for that day. Like, If I finish my project by 6pm today, I will watch “this”… could be anything of your choice.
6. Set tight boundaries around using technology while engaging in activities likes eating your meal, talking to a friend, and during the focused hours of productivity. This helps in increasing attention, performance and self control.
7. Make small realistic changes. Don’t go about changing everything today. When you feel distracted and find yourself if you notice yourself pulling out your phone to distract yourself from your feelings or from your life, pause and instead give yourself a minute or two to check in with yourself.

The Bottom Line

Mind is subtle energy field and brain is mind in action. As the mind perceive a thought, it is reflected in brain as electric impulse looking to build neurochemistry for a certain action in the body.

When we know that each thought has a power to affect your brain wiring then why not to become conscious of our thought patterns to start thinking more consciously.

By using above mentioned insights to master your mind, you can break the old habits that cause you stress to newer ones that help you consciously create body-mind structure leading to more success and happiness thereby leading to stress free life.