The mind is often a crazy place to hang out. We all have a voice in our heads that chatters on incessantly about nothing. Sometimes it can be mean or cruel and other times it just spews nonsense. Regardless of what its talking about, often it doesn't stay quiet long enough for us get a word in edgewise. It prattles on all day and the only rest we ever get from it is by going to sleep.

The voice that we hear is not our own. It is not a reflection of who we are nor who we are here to be. More often than not, that voice is a reflection of the pain that we carry around. If we learned to pay attention to that voice and shut it down sometimes, it would make the healing journey a lot easier. A quieter mind makes for a much more peaceful existence.

Learning to manage my mind was the first place that I started. I don't consider myself to be a particularly logical person but I was going to attempt to approach healing from a more logical point of view.  Learning to get control over my thinking was what I understood I needed to do first. The underlying belief is a simple one - everything that goes on within myself falls from the mind, consciously or unconsciously.

By controlling the mind I could begin to get control over my emotions. Most of my emotions were coming from thoughts that I was having. I was reacting to myself. I would think a thought and it would generate fear, yet I was alone in my room. There was nothing to be afraid of. If I could stop my mind from generating fear unnecessarily, maybe I could figure out how to feel better; maybe I could find more peace in my life.

The process began by asking questions - lots and lots of questions. I didn't understand how life worked. I didn't understand why life was the way it was. Why was I so miserable? Why did I end up in the life that I had found myself in? Whose life had I created? It definitely didn't feel like anything I wanted for myself. Who was I? Why was I? What did it all mean? What was the truth behind everything that was going on?

Those are some deep questions that some people spend their entire lives trying to answer. I set out on a mission to do the same thing for myself. I did so with the intention of figuring out how to create the life I wanted so that I could feel better. But first, I had to figure out who I was and what I wanted. That meant that I had to deal with all the pain that was blocking that clarity. The first step was to get control of the mind so that I could heal and release the pain.

I understood early on that I had created my life from pain. Every time I would set a bomb off in my life so I could tear it down and start again, I just created more pain when I rebuilt. I wasn't able to create a life that wasn't painful because I was in an overwhelming amount of pain within myself. I had to heal what was inside me first before the outside would look "right" to me.

And so began the process.

I took the thing that was screaming the loudest at the time, which were the financial issues that I was having. I used that as the basis for my healing journey. The reason why I took the thing that screamed the loudest, was because that was the easiest to pay attention to. It was always in my mind. That meant there was always a thought there for me to question or pay attention to. It turned out to be a good strategy and one I recommend often to other people.

Using the thing that was making the most noise in my head created an instant impact for me in terms of what was happening in my mind. I almost immediately felt a difference within myself when I was able to start to tune out some of that chatter. That opened the door to being able to question the thoughts versus just ignore them.

If you're struggling with this. If you find yourself thinking about the same thing 3 hours later and you didn't check yourself, it's okay. This is normal. We're not taught to do this and it can take a lot of practice to be able to be conscious of your thoughts. It starts with one thought a time though. If you never try, you'll never be able to do it.