Session One: The Mind

Umatter Podcast

This is a series created from the book “Be Love: A Book About Awakening” authored by Ned Burwell. This series is a guide for people who are seeking a life of purpose and peace told through the life experiences of Ned Burwell. The material is told through a variety of concepts, practices, anecdotes, and experiences. Hosted by Seamus Evely

The Awakening Podcast series was created to give you the tools to live a more purposeful and peaceful life through the teachings of Ned Burwell, author of the book “Be Love: A Book About Awakening”.

Session One – The Mind: Did you know that you experience up to 100,000 thoughts per day? Most of us wouldn’t either believe this statistic or realize that our minds are constantly being bombarded with thoughts to that degree. To add to this, a majority of them are negative. In this session, we explore the mind’s tendencies, how to better manage and use our minds, and why it is so important to just be cognizant of the realities of what is going on with our mind day to day.

Tools for Session 1

1. Take inventory of your thoughts. Start documenting all the different thoughts you have.
2. Once you have worked at this for a few days, look at what you have written and identify which thoughts are untrue, unreal, or not yours. Notice what thoughts you get caught up in. This is a great exercise for you to get to know what’s happening in your mind. 3. Just watch your thoughts. Try this out for an hour or even a day. When you notice that you have started to think about the thoughts in your head, just gently return to watching your thoughts as if they are a movie. When I refer to “watching your thoughts,” I mean you don’t get to talk to them or even silently think about them either.
3. Pretend that your mind is a movie screen. Everything you see and hear is being projected on you like a movie. As in the above lesson, just watch the movie, but this time, include everything happening around you.
4. Pay attention to how your mind pre-determines outcomes before they happen. This happens a lot in situations that you are most familiar with, like at work and with family. When you notice that you are doing this, be willing to stop and return to the moment. Keep working at stopping yourself from leaving what is happening in front of you. When your mind starts to pre-determine an outcome, you have left the presence of this moment.
5. Do you have things that make you angry or frustrate you on a regular basis? If so, practice removing your expectations and see if this changes your experience.
6. Take some time and make a list of the things you think might be out of date in your beliefs and thoughts.

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