The Space Between Your Thougths

Where I find mental peace.

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• 💭 The Space Between Your Thoughts

• ✏️ Insights - This week's podcasts, movies, books and other cool things

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The Space Between Your Thoughts

Hey Friends,

This is a little insight into my meditation practice, something I’ve been doing over the last few months which has led to astronomical changes in my mind and experience of life. I hope you benefit from this insha’Allah (God willing).

We spend most, if not all of our day in thought.

With the abundance of information we’re presented with through social media, notifications and emails it’s very rare that our brains are not stimulated. It’s almost as if there’s always a thought that occupies our mind. Few can say they spend time free from thought.

When we go to sleep and want to think about nothing, we struggle, even more so than ever before.

The space between your thoughts is where you find mental peace and quiet.

My mindfulness practice has helped me to find that space, expand it and spend more time in it. I hope you can achieve the same.

Here’s how it’s done.

I rest well and only meditate when I don’t feel sleepy, otherwise, I’ll fall asleep in the process. I sit with my legs stretched out and with a barricade of pillows around me for support. I wear my noise-cancelling headphones and listen to this YouTube video. I time 15 minutes on my FitBit watch and close my eyes.

That’s the easy part.

My main focus in the 15 minutes is to observe my thoughts rather than to associate with them. Just like a child looking at the clouds as they pass by, I watch my thoughts come and go. I practice not attaching to them and after some time they sort if disappear into nothingness. I usually focus on my breathing (in…out…in…out…you get the picture).

That’s it. The same process. Every day.

Sounds boring but it’s unbelievably peaceful. 15 minutes a day is 1% of your day but it has such a shift on the remaining 99%. I find that I’m able to dissociate from my thoughts slightly better each day. After some months of doing this practice, when I close my eyes I can quickly reach a state of ‘flow’.

It’s hard to describe but to me, it feels like I’m just floating in nothingness. I forget about my worries and concerns, my exams and deadlines and I let my mind run wild.

I call this, The Space Between Your Thoughts.

Some days I do this with no goal in mind, just pure relaxation. On other days I like to think about where I’m headed in life and what my focus should be on.

There’s an analogy I love to come back to about the mind, I call it Cloud Theory.

Just like clouds come and go in the sky, we have thoughts in our minds that come and go too. The art of mindfulness is not attaching yourself to the clouds (the thoughts) but to remember that above them there is always a blue sky. If you’ve ever been in a plane you may have noticed even in the worst of storms once a plane ascends above the clouds all you see is clear sky.

The mind works in the same way.

During meditation when I catch myself running away with a thought, I remember to let it go and to come back to the blue sky. (You’ll do this a lot in the beginning).

Psychologists say that on average 95% of your thoughts are the same every day. Think about it, whatever you have been thinking today is probably really similar to yesterday, and the day before.

I find that most of my new ideas whether for content, life direction or life situations come from these 15 minutes where I’m entirely focused on generating new ideas. It’s in this space that new thoughts and ideas originate.

Novel thoughts lead to change, growth and progress.

Try

Starting today, meditate every day. Make it as easy as possible, commit to doing 1 minute a day and slowly build it up over time. I began with 8 minutes a day back in May and gradually built it up to the 15 minutes I’m at today. Use the link I posted or find any sound that soothes you. The key is consistency. 3 minutes a day for a month takes you much further than 60 minutes twice a month.

Do this for at least 3 months and I guarantee you will notice changes in your perception of the world. I know it sounds a little strange, but the most fascinating things in life tend to be that way.

Let me know your thoughts:

If you hit <reply> to this email your message will be sent directly to me. I love hearing back from readers so feel free to leave a response!

✏️Insights

I don’t have any insights this week because I’ve been with my family at home. I’m spending all my free time with them so I haven’t been reading or listening to podcasts. It’s nice to take a break like this from time to time. Alhamdulillah for that opportunity.