Episode 1154: Quiet Your Mind

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,154 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:08] Taylor Stevens: I'm Taylor Stevens, AKA Mr. FI guy. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your. Having the ability to focus on what's really important and to find your route to independence is key.

[00:00:29] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott, Maderer.

[00:00:40] Scott Maderer: for some of us when we recognize that our mind is going into that state of activity and wanting approval, wanting control, wanting safety. When we recognize that voice of limiting beliefs shows up. Then we recognize it, acknowledge it. I've just talked before about [00:01:00] how I call my internal voice by a name and I have a mental picture for them.

[00:01:04] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true. And the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:31] And today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about why we often have noise in our own mind. I also share the benefits of learning to quiet our own. And I share 10 tips on how you can actually quiet your mind. You've heard me talk about developing your talent and what are the best ways to do that is through.

[00:01:54] But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's [00:02:00] podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free trial. There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via.

[00:02:20] That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. If you've ever heard the term quiet your mind, you've probably recognized how difficult that really is. Maybe you've experienced moments where you're in that stage that oftentimes you'll call the flow.

[00:02:45] Or maybe if you're an athlete, you've heard it called being in the zone. That point where your mind is totally focused on the present. Maybe you had a big event or something that you were doing, like getting [00:03:00] married or the birth of your child. And in that moment, your mind was focused so much on what was happening in that present moment that you didn't have all of the thoughts that we normally have.

[00:03:13] But if you think about. Most of the time your brain is being invaded by incoming messages, news flashes, social media updates, all sorts of bombarding information from the environment. And even if that's not happening, even if you shut down your phone and turn off your notifications and have a moment where those things are not coming in.

[00:03:37] In general, our minds have a tendency to talk to ourselves. Our minds have a tendency to constantly chatter and make noise, even if there's nothing coming in from outside and more often than not that internal chatter is off. Very negative. That internal chatter is [00:04:00] often about all of the bad things that are happening and being frightened and scared and worried about damage, or what's going to go wrong in your life.

[00:04:11] And that kind of happens where you have regrets about the past and worries about the future playing through your mind at all the time. If that's you recognize that you are not alone in that I've had the experience of talking to hundreds of people. And when I asked them, do you have an internal voice that talks to you in some way, either through pictures or words?

[00:04:35] Almost everyone says yes. Yes they do. And then when I asked them, how often is that internal voice? Nice to. How often is it giving you information or telling you things that are good and are easy and make it comfortable for you? Almost everyone says that's not true. The voice tends [00:05:00] to be a fear-based voice or one that says negative things to them.

[00:05:05] And the truth is though we have the ability to quiet our mind. We have the ability to learn. To not have all of that noise and chatter going on all of the time you do have that ability. The truth is most of us come from a time where we were worried about things. Maybe there was a point in our life as a child where we felt powerless.

[00:05:33] And our only source of comfort or feeling in control was the ability to control our thoughts that may have happened later in life as an adult. But most of us have that experience of only being able to control our thoughts, that being the only thing that was going on, that being the only thing that we really had some sense of control over.

[00:05:59] [00:06:00] And that subconscious or conscious belief that having these internal thoughts would give us control over the environment and protect us is where these thoughts come from. We have a deep belief that I think, therefore I am that statement by the car is. But if you've ever had those moments where you're in the flow and your mind is quiet, you recognize then that you still exist, even when your thoughts are not playing that constant litany.

[00:06:35] In fact, if you've ever had a moment of insight, a moment of intuition, something that seems to come from outside of you, you recognize that kind of moment, that connection to the bigger universe. Sometimes gives us insights that you may not have even recognized before that you're not even [00:07:00] sure where they come from, but come from somewhere, they do this state of flow, this state of being in the zone, this state of being plugged in and being present in the present.

[00:07:13] Makes us realize that our thoughts and ourselves are not necessarily the same thing. Our thoughts come from our biology or environment or behavior, our actions, our history, they come from other people, all of these different sources feed into our minds all of the time. And these thoughts sometimes come from what seems to just be nowhere whatsoever.

[00:07:38] What are some of the techniques that we can use to learn, to have a quieter mind? The first one's not going to be of any surprise if you've listened to this podcast before, because I talk about meditation a lot, a practice and a process of learning to become comfortable in a state of no thought, at least for short periods [00:08:00] of.

[00:08:00] That meditation practice is a practice. It is something that you have to learn to do. It is something that takes time and energy and is not necessarily something that's easy either. It is something that you have to work at, but basically it's about sitting in a quiet place. Closing your eyes, unplugging, being still.

[00:08:27] Focusing on something to help you let go of that mental chatter that could be breathing. That could be words that could be a number of different things. The second technique, and it's related to meditation is practicing the idea of mindfulness. Mindfulness is a practice of focusing on what is true in the present moment.

[00:08:53] Oftentimes for me, I have to think about what is true in terms [00:09:00] of what is actually physically there that I am feeling, what is physically present. I like to get plugged in physically before I think about my emotional state and mindfulness taking that practice of stopping and asking yourself, where am I?

[00:09:19] What is true? How do I feel? It's an important one for us. The third is a release technique for some of us when we recognize that our mind is going into that state of activity and wanting approval, wanting control, wanting safety. When we recognize that voice of limiting beliefs shows. Then we recognize it, acknowledge it.

[00:09:47] I've just talked before about how I call my internal voice by a name and I have a mental picture for them. And I say, thank you for showing up, because I know that they're trying to protect me, but then it allows [00:10:00] me to let that thought go quicker. Doesn't always work. But it's a practice that you can do.

[00:10:07] You can also focus on learning something new. If you've ever noticed when you're learning something new, you often go into that state of the zone or the focus state much quicker, the flow state, much quicker by the same token, sometimes doing a simple, repetitive task. Something like sitting and folding laundry can bring us into that state listening.

[00:10:31] Classical music or music without lyrics can help breathing, stopping, and breathing deeply inside and focusing on the breath, exercise, doing these sorts of activities, helping other people and. Stopping and asking yourself is what's going on in my mind right now, healthy and helping me all [00:11:00] these things, all 10 of these things are practices that you can do so that you begin to learn to quiet your mind, because the truth is, as you learn to do that, you become more focused on the present.

[00:11:16] You become more able to stay in the state of flow. You've become more in tune with yourself and with others, and it allows you to have a more comfortable place of being. Thanks for listening.

[00:11:33] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively. But act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent inside.[00:12:00]

[00:12:00] For our five week series on the stewardship of talent, or if you're in the U S you can text 4, 4, 2, 2, 2 talent tips. That's talent tips to 4 4, 2, 2, 2, and get those tips until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the world.