Do you ever feel as if you can’t turn off your mind and thoughts? Does your mind race preventing you from falling asleep or staying focused on a particular task? Does your mind run on and on to the point where you can’t take it anymore and you wish it would just stop?

Many years ago, this was me. I am happy to say that without medication, through spiritual and psychological training and practice my mind is quite the opposite today. I reveal this information to offer hope to those who suffer from a racing mind. I am not a doctor so I will not offer medical advice and am not suggesting that you stop taking any medication that  was subscribed to you by your doctor. What I am sharing with you is my personal experience with such issues as well as the experiences of others whom I know, who have also experienced similar changes though similar practices.

This slowing down of the mind can happen gradually by changing how we live. Quite often our mind races with regretful thoughts of our wrongful actions. So, start living right and make better decisions resulting in better actions. All of the posts on this site are related to right living and self-improvement.

Many of our racing thoughts may be attributed to our fears. When we live in fear our mind can be consumed with such fears making it difficult to experience a peaceful mind. I have written many posts that discuss fear and its opposite, faith, such as “Let’s Talk About God” and “Letting Go” that may help you to alleviate your fears. To begin practicing this faith in a Higher Power, I would suggest praying when you get up in the morning and at night before you go to bed. If your faith is limited, pray anyway, even if you don’t think it will help. You do not have to believe that anyone is listening and if you do, that’s OK too. What is important in your morning prayers is to decide to put your life in God’s care or in other words, deciding to trust in the way your life will unfold on that day. Of course, you will need to do your best to behave accordingly as your actions can impact your day. You must do all of the footwork necessary on any given day then you need to let go of the results, as you do not have control over other people and what life has in store for you next, acknowledging that living right and doing the necessary footwork can impact life’s results. Besides, you have nothing to worry about because you made a decision in the morning to let your Higher Power run the show. Someone once told me that my life is none of my business. Are you beginning to understand just how much peace there is in trusting in a Higher Power? Not necessarily trusting that everything is going to be great, but trusting in The Way It Is. Please read all of my posts on fear and faith to gather more information that may aid you in your quest for faith and see the Helpful Links page for additional information. During your evening prayers, express gratitude for your blessings that day. These are very brief prayers that can have a dramatic affect on your peace of mind and overall spiritual well-being.

Before or after your evening prayers, I would suggest doing a brief inventory of yourself for that day acknowledging both your right and wrong actions. Continue to do what you did right that day, improving where you can and learning from what you did wrong and try not to repeat such wrong behaviors in the future. We want to learn from our inventories so that we can be better people, continuously improving our thoughts and actions. The more we do what is right, the more peace of mind we will have.

Meditation is another great method you can use to begin to slow and calm your mind. However, this is a vast topic so I will write separate posts about various types of meditation. Anyway, you will find meditation more difficult if you are not living Right. So in summary, you’ll need to live right, work on developing your faith in a Higher Power, pray and perform daily inventories of yourself. If you honestly practice these principles, I would suspect that your mind will begin to slow down and stop racing.

I wish you a peaceful mind.

What do we think about when we think? It is possible that we think too much. Many times are thoughts are not productive or useful and they decrease our ability to be happy and at peace. So there you have it, don’t think and be happy. Almost, but not exactly.

Many of the thoughts that affect us negatively are thoughts of the past or thoughts of the future. We replay the old mind tapes of times when we wish we did this instead of that or we relive our resentments, over and over. And the future, well, we can make that as big as we want. No one knows what that holds for us but we certainly try to control it and worry about it nonetheless. We can even think too much about what we may consider to be the present. How many of you fantasize about life being different in some way? You may not be thinking about the past or the future, but you are not being with the present moment as it actually exists either. All of this useless thinking takes us away from the present moment, which is all that we really have and strips us of our ability to be happy here and now.

Even though you may try to stop the nonproductive thoughts, you will not be able to do so perfectly and that’s all right. When you realize that your mind has wandered just bring it back to the present. Try to be aware of whatever it is that you are presently doing. For example, if you are walking, be aware of the movements of your legs and your arms. Be aware of how it feels when your feet touch the ground. Be aware of your surroundings and the people you are with. Fully appreciate this moment. There should be plenty happening in the present to keep your mind occupied. By being with this moment, we make it difficult to think of any other time or place thus eliminating useless, nonproductive and harmful thoughts, the kinds of thoughts that rob us of our happiness and peace.

There are times, of course, that we need to think. I am not telling you to blindly approach life without thought. We’ll need to think in order to make decisions and we’ll need to think about ourselves and our motives to be certain that we’re doing what’s right. It’s also a good idea to do personal inventories, regularly checking our actions and motives so that we can make the necessary changes and apologies This type of inventory can require us to think deeply. These examples are of healthy and productive thinking. See the difference? Examples of healthy and productive thinking are endless, so I will stop here and leave it up to you to decide for yourself whether your thoughts are necessary, useful and productive or not. You’ll have to think about it

It takes practice to be able to live in the moment. So keep trying and one day you may suddenly realize that you no longer spend most of your time thinking about another time and place and you’ll know what it’s like to be fully present in this moment. It is quite peaceful and extraordinary.