How to Use the Monkey Mind to Build Circuits

Have you tried to meditate to calm the mind and instead, felt even more frustrated as thoughts whirled round and round…the desired stillness not even a glimmer on the distant horizon?

Maybe you’ve never meditated or even desired to meditate, but are interested in the idea of stilling the mind.  

When we are not identified as the thinking mind, we experience less pain. I am committed to providing sacred space for everyone to discover the distinctions between their true Essential Self and the false self—the thinking mind—that often runs our lives. 

When we get caught in life’s circumstances and it feels challenging to access that subtle frequency, that still, sacred space, the question often arises, “How do I get not identified as the mind?”

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Whether through guided meditations, The Energy Codes® coursework, or BodyAwake® Yoga, when we dial into and experience the subtle frequency in and around our physical body, the thickness of the space around us becomes palpable. This is sacred space. It’s the more of who you are.

Sometimes when we try to meditate, the thinking mind operates like a ceiling fan with the knob turned to high speed going round and round. And we are “stuck” on one side of the whirling blades. Similar to the ceiling fan, to move beyond the whirling blades of the mind, we need to slow the mind down so that we can expand. 

When the mind and body get in tandem, we can consciously experience a more expanded version of who we are. The rapidly moving mind keeps us contained in a limited sense of self because we can’t access our wholeness when we are identified as the mind.

Even if we still the mind, the whirling often returns as we shift into motion again. 

Finding stillness in motion

What we really want is to find stillness in motion. At one end of a spectrum is the story writing mind. This is the afraid, ungrounded mind. At the other end is absolute meditative stillness. 

What we want to do is learn how to operate in the in-between so that we can engage in life but we’re not controlled by the constantly whirling, mind. So how do we do that? 

We bring the attention to the body because the body operates at an alpha frequency, and the mind, when it’s untethered from the body, goes into higher frequencies. By bringing your mind’s attention onto the body, you meet in the middle, which creates a wave that you can ride. 

When anchored in the core, you can ride the wave even when emotions rise and wisdom dissipates. The more deeply you breathe in the body, the more wisdom is available and the more creative solutions you come up with. 

You always have two options

As we become masterful at staying present, even during intense emotional circumstances, we can stay in the place where solutions are found. We become masterful by breathing lower and slower in the body rather than jumping into the fray to find a solution. 

When the thinking mind jumps into the fray and writes a story, we get attached to the story and believe we have no choice, and this causes pain.

As you breathe lower in the belly and slow the mind, you start to recognize, actually there are two options in every moment. 

Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati used to speak about our head being the two heads of a wolf. One is compassionate, fiercely protective, and guides us to safety. The other one is judging, fierce, and often defensive. One option leads us to compassionate understanding. The other gets us into battle. When she shared this, one of her students would ask, “Which one is going to survive?” She would say, “Whichever one you feed.” 

That we’re always at choice based on which intention we feed is a valuable knowing to deeply anchor in our consciousness. A part of you knows you have a choice, but do you remember that in the moment when the rubber hits the road? Or do you only perceive, “I’m afraid.” 

To approach each moment from the perspective of, “I have choices,” is a key to let go of pain and step into empowered freedom.

The monkey mind as servant to your wholeness

While we consciously desire to choose stillness, sometimes we land in the reactive monkey mind. If the monkey mind is whirling away at high speed and you can’t easily turn the knob to stillness, it’s happening for a reason.

As the mind rehashes all these things, it is simply trying to recalculate circumstances. If you come down into the body and breathe, it will allow the monkey mind to serve, because everything is in support of consciousness evolving. 

In my opinion, it is a misinterpretation that the monkey mind is a bad thing. 

Instead, we have to remember that the monkey mind comes from the Monkey God, Hanuman, who is the Lord of Service. Your monkey mind is trying to be of service to the big picture. 

As we know from The Energy Codes® principles, everything is in our favor. So it serves you that the monkey mind is active. It’s a good thing because it’s trying to build new circuits. As you allow the thoughts that occur over and over while you try to meditate, you’re trying to come up with solutions—to rewrite the story. 

Instead of resisting, recognize that every single one of those things happening or those thoughts arising, are areas of life where you’re trying to ignite more circuitry, or they wouldn’t keep occurring. 

If there’s a reoccurring thought that you can’t let go of, don’t try to disassociate or shove it away, because that’s not how the universe works. It’s going to come right back. If you think you’re supposed to throw it away, you’ll do that again and again, but the thought will simply return. It has to because it’s here in service to you so that you recognize where you need to ignite circuits. 

Have you signed the universe on your team?

The invitation is to embrace, thank, and work with the thought so that the universe is on your side. This happens because you are on the side of the universe. You joined a team that is much bigger than the individual separate self. I highly recommend that you sign that team up.

So when you’re trying to meditate, but a thought persists, instead of saying, “Not now, go away,” say “Okay, come here.” 

You don’t have to think about it or process it, simply pull it into your heart. If you put it into your heart, the very energetic frequency of the heart space is going to settle and stretch the thought open so that you suddenly see, “Here’s what I need to do.” 

When it’s all jumbled up so that you can’t see what’s in there, it becomes nearly impossible for you to benefit from this runaway monkey mind. 

When you’re identified as the mind, you feel like you have only one choice. As you identify as the Essential Self that has a mind, you can thank the monkey mind.

If you take the thoughts and ideas one at a time and run them through your filtering system, they actually turn into powerful cues for you to build circuitry. This builds a robust energy channel so that you can pierce up the primitive brain and land in the high brain centers that are where Creator lives. That’s your destiny and the mind is trying to help you get there. 

Embrace all of the team players

So the fact that we’re trying to stop the runaway mind rather than embrace it, is part of the problem. Most people want a better strategy to stop or ignore the runaway mind, or send it to the background, so they can focus on something better. 

You will not be able to focus on the wholeness of your being, know it, live it, or bring it to life as long as you are trying to eliminate some part of you.

Rather, operate as if life is in support of you and every one of your faculties, even the monkey mind, are a part of your wholeness. Then we can utilize those very things we used to try to get rid of because they are now on our team. When you’re on the same team, you can turn those previously “unwanted things” into assets.

So when the mind is running away, don’t beat it up. Simply ask it to slow down enough so that you can hear it. Imagine the mind is like an enthusiastic child who runs in shouting, “Mama, mama…this and this and this all happened.” She’d say, “Slow down a second. Tell me one thing at a time so that I can hear and understand.”

The exact same thing has to happen when we’re in a stressful moment because so much is going through our mind. Bring your attention to the body, not with the intention to stop the mind, but because the body gives it a landing pad. Honor the mind and let it know that it’s not alone so that it starts dropping in to brilliance, creativity, healing, and wholeness. 

Simply be present. You don’t have to solve the problem in that moment. That’s not meditation. That’s problem solving. Simply being present with the mind and its thoughts changes the vibration and the thoughts start to serve. 

If you are meditating and not anchored in the physical body, but “out there” in the subtle body, it’s similar to the unanchored monkey mind. You want to come into the central channel. Don’t force it, simply become aware of the channel, while you’re in the expanded state so that you start to take this vastness and bring it toward a stream, a ray of light, which is the “more” of who you are. 

It’s a yes, and…

It’s not about an either/or. It’s a yes, and…. In meditation and in “doing” life, we want to be aware of the central channel at the same time we’re present with the monkey mind or the vastness of the cosmos. 

If you’re walking around in your life dialed into this physical frequency and the “doing,” every once in a while, remember the most expanded state you’ve ever had. It could be as simple as a feeling of connectivity or a blissful moment you’ve experienced. 

Also, while in an expanded state, be there, as you remember the “doing”—your job, your relationship, your children. Remember that you have a physical body. It is that simple. 

By remembering the other end of the specturm from the one you are in, you start to bridge these two points of reference. You collect and connect essence with structure or function. You allow presence and physicality—spirit and body, and both. As we are consciously aware of both ends, we bridge the worlds in a magnificent way which is what we’re here to do. Life becomes magical. 

I invite you to join me and register for the free Monthly Healing Transmission. We spend time together cultivating sacred space and dropping into stillness so that no matter what speed the thinking mind is dialed to, you have an experience of being solidly anchored in the core of your body.

Photo Credit Colton Sturgeon on Unsplash