Have you ever become so stressed that your mind felt like a jumbled mess of confusion? This technique can not only help you clear your thoughts and improve your memory, but it could also mend your relationship.
With Mother's Day passed and spring in full blossom, it's the season for considering thoughtfulness in one's life.
Many individuals tend to take their thoughts for granted, and they never take the time to consider the capabilities, or the consequences (depending on how you look at it), of the thoughts that guide their every whim. Perhaps now would be as good of a time as any to get under the skin of your own mind and understand the process of how you think just a little bit better. If you are having communication problems with a loved one, then it may even help mend your relationship.
For starters, have you ever noticed what got you to a certain point in your thought process? Have you ever been thinking of something rather odd and, out of the blue, wondered how you got there?
I've done this many times. When this moment strikes me, I've found enjoyment in tracing back my thoughts so far as I could at the time to see if I could connect when each new thought came up, and what caused me to think that certain thing.
Let's start with the thought that I became aware of first. I was thinking about cheeseburgers. Before that I was thinking about red cloth. The red cloth made me think of blood, which made me think of meat, which made me think of hamburger meat, and voila, I stumbled upon a juicy, delicious cheeseburger.
From that point I traced back even further, from what led me to red cloth, and so on. The first time I did it, I managed to trace back to things I had already forgotten about from a half hour earlier. This tool can be great for memory improvement!
The path of thoughts can usually be traced back until you reach a point where a concrete physical action took place; such as looking at a picture on the wall. This physical break would initiate the thought pattern, and from there your mind would take off until you either a) became conscious of the thoughts or b) had a different physical break occur, such as feeling a piece of sandpaper, which would start a new thought sequence based on the initial touching of the sandpaper.
The reason things like these are considered “breaks” is because they take no thoughts to manifest. They are physical actions that create their own chain of thinking. There are no requirements of your mind for them to occur.
The implications this practice can bring into daily life are ones of relief and understanding, both of your self and others. Individuals whom don't take the time to manage their thoughts can often become more worried individuals than their thought following counterparts. This practice of “thought pathing” is not only fun for finding out how crazy your mind works, but it can also help you when you would least expect it.
In relationships, for instance, there are many arguments in which you may be wrong about a certain topic, but you are still continuing to fight with your spouse as if you didn't know any better. This could be because of pride, and not wanting to admit fault, or even the fact that you just simply are unable to take that step back and witness your own mistakes.
However if you are able stop pause for a moment and slow your mind down, take a look inside your own head, and calm your thinking for a moment, a lot of times it will allow you that “distance” from the argument that you need, and a very real chance to see your own side of things in a different light.
That process of slowing of the mind will allow you to connect with your own thoughts much better, and even correct the bad ones that are possibly causing the misunderstandings ailing you. This will result in better connections with your loved ones, and more fulfilling views on the life going on around you.
If you can manage to do this once a day for about ten or fifteen minutes it will help you cultivate a much more generous and prosperous outlook on life.