Thoughts are like ‘Birds in the sky’
Thoughts are like ‘Birds in the sky’
Audio recording of this article (Under 3 minutes)
You are sitting in the open, casually looking at the sky. You see a bird flying in your direction. You keep on looking at the bird. The bird sees your interest. It slowly descends and lands on your head. You make no effort to drive it away. It jumps to your shoulder. You watch its colors and movements with interest. The bird happily settles down on your head. In a few days, it builds a nest on your head. You made no effort to shake it off. In a few more days, the bird lays eggs and soon there is a family of birds chirping happily on your head. You are getting distracted and not able to focus on your work. You now dislike the family of birds and wish they would all leave your head and find another place. But having lived with them so long, you developed an attachment to them. You don’t have the heart to drive them away. You now wonder “How did I get into this mess?”
You initiated the mess when you continued to pay attention to the bird after seeing it in the sky. You nurtured the mess by not shooing the bird away when it was building a nest on your head, laying eggs, and hatching them. If you had diverted your attention on seeing the bird, all the subsequent mess would have been aborted. Your head would have been free and you could pursue your chosen activities.
A similar mess develops when you pay attention to unwanted, stressful, or negative thoughts. If you pay attention to such a thought, it lays eggs and expands its family of negative thoughts, progressively occupying more of your mind. The more you delay diverting your attention, the more difficult it becomes to get rid of the family of negative thoughts. The simple trick is to divert your attention as soon as such a thought appears. Then in a while, it quietly disappears.
When we analyze our stream of thoughts, we find that there are only a few negative thoughts about own self or others, that repetitively appear in the mind and create stress. When you frequently and promptly divert your attention from them, their visits to your mind will progressively decrease. After a few months of this ignoring treatment, such negative thoughts stop visiting your mind! This is not just a theory. Try this trick from today. You will see the amazing results in a few weeks.
“Don’t let the birds build nests on your head and then complain.”
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