1000 Thoughts an Hour vs a Quite Mind

The average person has about 1000 thoughts each hour.

Since most of our life experiences occur within, in the realm of opinion, feeling, and perspective in the mind, it makes sense that out of those 1000 or so thoughts some of them have a huge impact on the experiences that can present themselves from moment to moment.

Our thoughts are the "breathing air" that makes up the world around us.

Is The Thought You Are Having Useful?

Some thoughts are useful, no doubt. But out of the 1000s of thoughts we experience in just a few hours time a lot of them are not useful- in fact a number of them serve negative functions like:

Taking You Out of The Present Moment – Each thought is either an interpretation of the present moment, or a dwelling on the past, or a prospect in the future.

Forming Patterns – Thoughts attract other similar thoughts that form a pattern, and this often becomes a pattern of behaviour. To an extent, inner thoughts create outer experiences.

Perhaps the most important factor is, thoughts are the natural "filling space" when there is silence in the mind. There never seems to be an end to the internal chatter and endless thinking that occurs.

If after finishing a thought the mind goes back to a place of quite stillness instead, we then have a chance of experiencing a sense of peace and distance from the endless chatter and thought-processes of the mind.

Is Mental Stillness Useful?

Mental stillness brings about a deeper sense of peace where identification with thought-processes ceases. It's that point where we stop listening to our thinking and just be.

Not dwelling for hours about how bad 'situation x' was.

Not dwelling about 'what could have been if…'

Thoughts that cause us to dwell about things are not useful. These thoughts waste mental energies and divert attention from the power of the present moment.

Mental Power

Being present and maintaining a calm mind creates a lot of inner power. If a person chooses to dis-engage from her thoughts she declares that "I am not allowing these thoughts to create this experience, I am creating this experience in the process of being present". Giving thoughts power makes them justified, more justified than consciousness – which is a little too much power for thinking patterns to have.

True mental power is being able to take conscious action and to choose whether to think a thought or not. It might sound simple, but it's harder than it sounds! To choose to dis-engage from the mental chatter is a challenge worth taking up as the rewards of peace and mental stillness far exceed even the best thought-patterns.

Is There An Alternative Thought?

Being conscious does not just provide the benefit of mental stillness, it also provides a chance to re-frame and stop negative thoughts. You can ask "Is there an alternative to thinking this?" from time to time to re-frame existing thinking patterns.

"How else can I think about this?"

It breaks the existing pattern of thinking using the power of consciousness. For example, after an upsetting argument with someone: "Can I choose not to have these thoughts and to instead think about a positive method of resolving this and moving forward?"

You never 'need' to think certain thoughts after particular events occur. There is no "need" to think thoughts of anger to make unjustified situations feel justified. Realizing this and dis-engaging from the apparent need to think these thoughts makes the choice to respond with consciousness clear.

Reflecting on which of those 1000s of thoughts can be re-framed and which of them are needed at all liberates attachment to thinking and replaces it with a quite mind. Those who are able to go to this quite place after finishing a thought instead of latching on to the next thought are able to experience true peace.

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