Talking Head: Don’t Believe Everything You Think

I used to live in a densely populated neighborhood in one of the biggest cities in the country. I had the front half of a duplex, so my nearest neighbor lived just the other side of a couple of slabs of wallboard in my bedroom. I heard everything he did and said in that room, even though I didn’t really have any personal interest in experiencing his love life second hand. I didn’t really mind, though. I had grown used to the constant, low-level white noise that comes with all the cool stuff urban life brings, like Thai takeout at midnight.

Then one day I took up meditation and I discovered that the noise outside paled to insignificance in the face of the avalanche of sound inside my own head. Sitting in a meditative pose was hard enough (I hate when my legs go to sleep), but waiting for my brain to stop babbling at me was exquisite torture. If my legs hadn’t been asleep, I probably would have run screaming from the non-stop scripts running over and over. I tried guided imagery (somebody else’s script), chanting (nonsense syllables since I had no idea what they meant), and toughing it out. Nothing worked.

Then one day, it occurred to me that maybe that was the point. Meditation isn’t necessarily about stilling the stream of mental babble, though I suppose the masters of Zen may succeed in doing so. The point for we ordinary mortals is that it allows us to become aware of our scripts and just how banal, annoying and downright idiotic they are.

My meditative sessions became far more satisfying after I had that particular revelation. Instead of fighting to ignore my scripts, I started paying particular attention to them, and it was a very enlightening experience (no pun intended). I discovered that some of my personal problems (okay, most of them) could be traced back to the nifty little wordplays racing around my noggin. People complain about the constant bombardment of advertising and disinformation by the Media. Bah, they are amateurs. My brain will take them two falls out of three any day.

I found this insight both surprising and disturbing. I’m skeptical by nature, so I rarely take anything at face value. But I had been steeping in a mélange of self-defeating, disempowering goo on endless replay most of my life. I’d been suckering myself without even realizing it. But how do you change those scripts?

Not easily, I discovered. It’s been a constant struggle, and an evolving adventure that is far from over. Most days, I have a pretty positive perspective on my life. Some days, not so much. The best part is that the journey is turning out to be the point of it all as I explore my inner landscape and renovate my interior monologue using the tools I’ve picked up along the way.

My biggest revelation: nobody can do it for you. Redecorating your mental house is definitely a do-it-yourself project. There are mentors and experts to consult along the way, but I’ve discovered it’s all about you.

Grab that measuring tape and dream something good. Just Think Differently.