By Shalini Parekh | Posted: September 17, 2018
Summer and vacation season are officially over. Do you feel rested and rejuvenated? Or do you wish you had another few days to unwind? We’ve all heard of needing a vacation after a vacation! So what saps our energy levels when we’re supposed to be resting? Recognizing the inner mechanics of our energy can help us conserve it and screen stimuli that might be entertaining at the time, but is ultimately draining. Chances are, if your brain is feeling an overload of stimuli, it needs some decluttering. Here are three proven ways of decluttering your mind:
1. Drop that underlying sense of worry
Here is a secret shared by meditation Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar: The head worries and the heart feels. They cannot function at the same time. When your feelings dominate, worry dissolves.
However, letting go of your worries is easier said than done! The tendency is to continue the patterns of thought that go into a repetitive mode of worry. The key, therefore, is to become aware of these patterns. So what can you do every day that helps you function at the level of the heart and drop the worry that plagues you? Try spending time in nature, doing something creative, singing or doodling or playing an instrument. When your heart dominates, then worry naturally dissipates. Worry cannot coexist when you are close to nature — or in your nature!
2. Understand the nature of desire
We are constantly oscillating between pain and pleasure. The desire to seek one and shun the other becomes the root of all desires. In all our tasks, we seek one and avoid the other. The desire to chase pleasure puts us in a permanent state of discontent. In the end, we fail to realize that desires are the cause of mental angst, worry and sadness. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, “Your sadness is because of the thorn of desire in your heart. If you don't take notice of it, it will turn into sarcasm, cynicism, frustration, and anger. You need to pull it out and throw it, then you will feel uplifted and happy.”
He adds that desires, whether fulfilled or unfulfilled, leave you in the same space. Accepting both with a sense of dispassion and equanimity will not just free you from the suffering caused by desire, but truly release your mind from the clutter of wants that seem to have no beginning and no end. In reality, the end of one desire is the beginning of another. Simply being aware of this mental ebb and flow helps you break free of the hold of the cycle of desires.
3. Are you Meditating?
If not, then you are missing out on the most effective method of decluttering your mental space. To oversimplify, the essence of meditation can almost be defined as reclaiming the space that you are. We are part of the continuum of space in the cosmos. Meditation helps reconnect us into the unified field of energy that we are already a part of. It helps us tune in to an infinite space. Mental chatter, on the other hand, separates us from our vast expansive nature. It shortchanges our optimum potential, and contains us within self repeating limiting patterns. Can infinite space and clutter coexist? Obviously not. Meditation, therefore, is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
There are many ways to meditate, and simple techniques can work for most of us. The secret to success lies in consistency and regularity. Just like brushing your teeth, It is like hygiene for the mind. Once you find the magic of space that meditation naturally invites, then the cluttering blocks that crowd our mind will tumble around us effortlessly.
By Shalini Parekh - She has taught yoga in the Chicago area for almost 20 years. She believes that you teach best what you need to learn the most and is passionate about bringing the nuances of ancient yoga philosophy to the forefront of modern yoga practice. She is also a journalist and writes about issues of identity, culture and politics.
