The 2:45 AM Saga...

Our mind is our most powerful tool that helps us achieve things, that makes us do things, that pretty much runs our life. Without it we won’t be existing. Our hearts can wish for a lot of things but if we don’t put our mind to it, they won’t happen. That is how powerful the mind is. It can drive a person crazy or help a person reach his/her potential. That is how powerful our mind is. Most of the time we succumb to it, let it control us. However, a lot of great philosophers have learnt how to control their mind and have converted their proven techniques into books so that they can help humanity, far and beyond. I have read several books that talk about the power of being present, calming a racing mind, controlling your mind before it controls you, etc. In our waking minutes we can all do this with a fairly decent success rate. Otherwise we will all be living in an even more chaotic world than we are in right now. But a different problem arises when this happens in the middle of the night. That is when the mind goes, “let us surprise the host (the body) with some thoughts”... Some nights it is a list of things that you put off and need to do, and other nights, the mind gets creative by coming up with all possible “what-ifs” that could occur - and I mean the scary, worrisome kind of what-ifs.

When I was laid-off,? thanks to COVID-19,? my mind took that opportunity to make sure that I knew of all the possible things that could happen if I don’t land a job in the near future (as if I needed to be reminded). Of course, one night,? I woke up sweating, feeling confused, scared, etc. Checking the time, I noticed it was 2:45 AM. I was lying down thinking, when is this mind going to keep quiet so I can go back to sleep? No matter how much I tried to control it using some of the many proven techniques that I had read, it wouldn’t stop. It was there, just wanting to win over me. Trying to make me feel miserable, lose sleep, and wake up miserable once again. Suddenly, I got an idea that night. I wanted to really put an end to that incessant chatter and yes, it was still middle of the night. That is how determined I was and thought of an idea.? I asked the mind a simple question. I asked, “Mind, you are part of me and should be on my side. Why would you get so much satisfaction in making me feel miserable?” To my surprise, the thoughts just vanished. Now I was lying down on my bed, not with fear and misery, but with disbelief. I was like hello, are you there? No answer. So I drifted back to sleep. I felt so empowered the next day. The next night, again at 2:45am, I woke up with similar thoughts. Once again, I thought, let me challenge my mind to think differently. So I told my mind, “Hey, instead of coming up with so many negative what-ifs, why don’t you come with some positive scenarios that both you and I can benefit from? You are after all part of me. What good are you going to get from negative thoughts?” Again it stopped. I was hoping it would think of some nice positive scenarios that could happen but nah, it didn’t feel like it. However, that got me thinking as well. I was lying there wondering why my mind was able to think of so many negative options but when I challenged it for positive ones, it was not able to come up with any. Well, all day, we do dream of possible things that we can achieve and do, and that somehow drifts into worry, self-doubt etc.,? Why? Could it be because of all we are exposed to via Social Media, TV, magazines, radio, of all the bad things happening around us. Even though we see good things happening, our mind focuses on the bad things more. The feeling of fear is overpowering the feeling of hope. We need to feed our hope and faith, more than we feed our fear. Only then will a lot of our automatic, subconscious thoughts and what-ifs will become more positive. It is a gradual process, but certainly doable. I can say that by practicing this for just a couple nights, I feel a bit more empowered and I hope to keep it that way. Hope is all we have, to keep moving forward and we need to keep feeding our subconscious mind just the positive outcomes that could happen. Then it will replay those for us at 2:45am every night.

Share your thoughts and ideas on how you control that incessant chatter of your mind in the middle of the night.