This is the text for my podcast of the same name.

Good day this is Revvell of Bodacious Living on The WIN!

    During this program and probably many others, I’ll be talking about “the monkey mind”. What the monkey mind is is that little voice in your head which encourages you to do what I call crimes against wisdom. Now, those are exactly what they say. We KNOW what we “should” or “should not” be doing yet, the monkey will tell you to “go ahead, do it!”  Of course, this depends on the situation. If you’re a procrastinator, the monkey will tell you to NOT do something; go do something else! If you’re working out, the monkey will tell you to stop, not “overdue”; you’ve done enough... Seems you can’t win, yes?

    Very often I liken this to having a crow ~ for those of you who remember Heckle and Jeckle ~ on each shoulder. One telling you what you KNOW is the “right” thing to do while the other is encouraging you to do otherwise. For instance, that second piece of cake. How many times have you said to yourself “I KNOW I shouldn’t do this”? Yet, go ahead and do it anyway? THAT is an obvious crime against wisdom. Others are more subtle.

    It tells you at night that you’re going to get up earlier in the morning so you can eat a full breakfast, workout, write in a journal or any number of things you might want that time for.

    In the morning, that mind will come up with any number of excuses and rationalizations to not get up such as ~ “You can do it during lunch or after work” (journal or walk/workout); “ Sleep is good! You ARE doing this for you!”; “You were up later or are tired and you can always begin tomorrow!”....

    It’ll lie about your diet ~ “Just this once wont hurt you”... “you’ve been “good” all week”; “You’ve GOT to eat!”; “It (fill in the blank here) doesn’t contain THAT much sugar/calories/fat ~ whatever it is you’re looking to avoid or eliminate”...” I’ll just do another :30 on the treadmill” and on and on...

    It will lie to you about your ability to drink and drive and then when you get in a collision, it’ll lie to you about why and whose “fault” it was.

    It’ll even lie to you about why not to brush your teeth at night including... I’m tired; it’ll wait until morning; I just ate and like the taste in my mouth... then, when you’ve got teeth problems, it’ll make excuses for why you have them which has nothing to do with not having brushed your teeth at night. How about “well, I have soft teeth?”

    I just finished a 3 part series on procrastination and the lying mind is a GREAT provocateur in why not to finish ~ and even begin ~ things that you want or need to do. As I’m typing this, my mind is telling me how late it is and I “should” go lay down and read.

    Have you heard these? “You’ve got plenty of time”... “You need to do more research...” “You can do it later”...

    And then, when you get the chance to do something fun, you can’t because you “have to finish (or do)” something? Then the monkey mind will come up with excuses for not having done the things and/or beat you up saying “I SHOULD have... “ and yet, next time, you go through the same old procrastination cycle where, the monkey mind lies again saying “THIS time, we’re going to get it done early!” It may even get you started early yet, the finish is still the last minute rush job it always is.

    Understand, the monkey mind is a trickster.

    
Let’s break it down ~ relationships for instance. Externally, your friends and family will be doing the same thing. Think of them as a crow on each shoulder.  You know in your gut that it’s time to leave the relationship so, you talk to others and those coming from fear will say the same thing the monkey mind, or, the “bad” crow says ~ “Better to be with someone than without” or, “what if the next one is worse?” or, “You just have bad luck with guys”. Whereas those on the outside looking in ~ or, the crow who is REALLY looking out for your welfare and not coming from fear will be telling you to: “Drop the schmuck! Better to be alone and looking than with someone who abuses or disrespect you”.... and also, “You’ll never find who you want if you stay with him” and, of course, “You’re better than he is.”

In business or a job, you’ll know in your guts when it’s time to leave yet, the mind will say the same things ~ what if the next job is worse or, what if you can’t find another job? Times are hard; you’re getting older.. you should be grateful you have a job! So, you stay and be miserable ~ about a third of your life ~ for awhile longer or, do something that gets you fired... which is what I did many years ago thinking I could hang in another year and “things will be better”. Another monkey mind lie. My last employer took the matter into her own hands and fired me. You wouldn’t believe the weight that took of MY shoulders AND, I didn’t realize how much I really didn’t like working there!

Let’s look at finances... You know you’re already overextended yet, you REALLY want that one item and you KNOW you’ll have the money to pay for it once the new year comes; or the raise you’re expecting or, so-and-so is going to pay back the money s/he borrowed... so, the good voice is telling you; “You know you shouldn’t” and the not-so-good voice is say “You’ve still got room on your card; what’s one more thing?; you REALLY need it! It’ll help you in your work!; you can work this out...” Blah, blah, blah!

Have you noticed how quietly and unobtrusively the good voice speaks and the not-so-good voice just goes on and on until it wears you down?

How about when you’ve actually gotten up and walking; or to the gym, or wherever you work out? The good voice is THRILLED that you did it yet, up jumps the not-so-good voice telling you “that’s enough now; don’t overdo; you can do more later; you’ve got things to do; etc. etc. etc.!!!

So, what exactly does that mean “overdo?” Most of us really don’t have to worry about “overdoing” now, do we? Unless, this is the first time in a long time we’ve not done anything which usually happens around the first of the year; or, when we see the ads about “bathing suit time”.

My next question is ~ whose voice is it you’re hearing that stops you from having fun, working out, getting things done?

I know when I’m training and hearing the “don’t overdo” part, it’s usually my mother’s voice! Don’t overdo or you’ll get sick or overheated or... whatever!!!

What’s interesting about these voices is, they all pretty much say the same things. I can’t tell you where they come from but, let’s consider how to stop the civil war going on in our heads, okay?

One thing I do is have fun with the negative voices. For instance when I’m out walking it’ll often tell me I’ve gone far enough so, I engage in a conversation with it while I continue walking. It may go something like ~

It ~ You’ve gone far enough. Let’s go home.
Me ~ Why?
It ~ You’ve got things to do.
Me ~ and, plenty of time to do them
It ~ well, you could start them now
Me ~ but I want to walk
It ~ well, o.k., then, just a little farther....

Understand, I usually begin walking about 5:30 a.m. The thing is is to acknowledge the voice! We usually just try to suppress it and ignore. Next time, just chat with it and see what happens. Basically, these voices are dis-owned parts of ourselves and if we acknowledge them and “own” them, we just may be surprised that they begin supporting us more rather than sabotaging us.

Instead of saying “Don’t overdo”, it might just say “you said you wanted to do 3 miles today; well, let’s get going!” Make the voices your friends rather than a weight around you!

Currently I’m doing 30-100 rounds of Swimming Dragon qigong every morning. Throughout much of it for the first few days the little monkey voice told me how I could just do 10 every hour and by the end of the day, I’d have maybe 80 done. KNOWING, I’ll probably not stop every hour and do them, I told the voice... well, how about if I do 15 now and then, I’ve only got 85 more to go? That seemed to satisfy it. After I’d done 15, I said, you know, what if I do another 5? Then I’ll only have 80 to go? After I’d done 20, I said, if I do 5 more, I’ll have 25% of it done and then it’ll be easy to do the other 75.

It’s weird when I think about it ~ that I have to have conversations with other parts of me yet, now, with Swimming Dragon, I can do the first 30 ~ (which is currently my daily minimum) without the conversation ~ mostly ~ and then, do the rest at various intervals.

Sometimes, at the end of the day say I’ve got 15-25 to do... I may do 15 and tell the mind, o.k., I can do 10 more later... and later is only 10 minutes away because ~ it’s easy to do 10!

Another thing I like to do is sentence stems and completions. If you’ve listened to or read my other podcasts/articles (I put the text version of this up as an article for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, by the way), you’ll see more clearly how these are done yet, let me just give you a short version.

For instance, say I’m procrastinating on getting my latest podcast up.

Some of my “reasons” are ~ I’ve got plenty of time; they’re not THAT hard to do; I’ll get up early on Sunday morning and get it done; yada, yada, yada! The truth is, I’ll sometimes begin writing what I want to say and by the time Saturday or Sunday rolls around, I’ve come up with another plan. So, why don’t you just wait until Saturday or Sunday you ask? Well, if I’d not begun it, then, what might happen is, the original writings might not work for me and I wont have time to rewrite, record and edit so, I’ll put out something I’m not at all happy with ~ or, not put anything at all out and go against my agreement with the WIN as well as with myself ~ which, as strange as it sounds ~ is just what the monkey mind wants! Surprisingly, anytime it can trick you into doing something other than what you say you consciously want, it’s happy!

Also, writing it can take quite some time if what I want to say doesn’t flow smoothly and editing takes as much if not more sometimes, depending on how I’m feeling when recording.

Let’s take a quick look at jobs. Say you’re in a job you dislike and want to get out of it. Here are a couple of sentence stems you might want to write down then add 6- 10 endings to:

One reason I don’t want to leave this job is ~
    Some endings might be those stated previously.

Here’s another ~

One reason I DO want to leave this job is ~

    I detest it!
    I’m bored silly
    I want/need something that inspires and motivates me
    I feel as though I’m wasting my time here
    
Now, you come up with your own.

Finally, for today, a final sentence stem:

    The reason I AM leaving this job is: Now, write that down and come up with 6-10 (or more even) endings to that statement.

Enough for today ~

This is Revvell Revati of BodaciousLiving for the WIN! Bye for now!