Monkey Mind

I put some thought into this next entry and decided to do something a little different. It seems to me that people often share what they like about themselves and what they are good at. Since I just shared that my writing must not be half bad, it’s time to share a few flaws or problem areas:

You tend to become so detached from your immediate environment that you live in a disorderly, chaotic sort of hodgepodge, though this probably bothers those around you more than it bothers you.*

Daydreaming, lack of concentration, and inattention to your surroundings can be problems for you. Your mind tends to wander unless you are using it in an imaginative, creative way.*

Yeah. I have trouble being present. I have a monkey mind, to borrow a term from the yogi of the world. Very restless, always swinging from thought to thought. It’s not clear from the snippet of my astrological profile if this disorderly, chaotic hodgepodge is an actual physical manifestation or inside my head. I think it’s the latter.

My actual life is nothing I’d classify as a hodgepodge. I’m not overly messy (I’m lazy, though, and straightening up isn’t my favorite chore). I’m punctual. I really don’t care for clutter. I remember appointments and the like. I dress appropriately, and I am highly functional. Maybe I like my physical world neat, because the world inside my head is a definite chaos.

I tried to tell my husband once why I often appeared detached and inattentive. I don’t think I explained myself very well. It’s just that my brain is so busy. Not only do I live my own life, but there are the lives of all the characters I created. And their worlds. That’s a lot of lives to keep straight (no pun intended). Add my kids and husband, the cat and the car maintenance schedule … yep, brain is busy.

So even before we had kids I figured my brain deserved a break now and again. I tried meditation. That didn’t work very well. My monkey mind had no idea how not to think. The concept of not thinking was so alien and foreign, it was immediately rejected.

Tai Chi and yoga were great, though. I had to concentrate so much on the physical demands that my brain had no choice but to shut down all thought processes to get my limbs to tangle and untangle in the correct ways. But the second I am to close my eyes and relax my mind and body, to think of a peaceful place and find inner quiet … my brain perks up and monkey mind is determined to make up for the lost sixty minutes of thought.

I have since come to terms with that contradiction: in order to relax, I have to do something strenuously physical – there has to be a certain degree of difficulty and demand or it won’t work, which perfectly mirrors this problem of mine:

You absolutely cannot tolerate being passive or even patient about getting what you want. You feel that it is up to you to take the initiative and you go after your goal or desire very aggressively.*


*Ry Redd's Cayce Past Life Report for Nadja, born March 5, 18:35, Saarbruecken, Germany