Kids User Guide to a Human Life

a book series offering 9 to 12 year-olds fun, practical information on how to live a life with less stress and more joy

Did you hear it?

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ch1img5Did you hear it—your mind chattering away?

If you look closely, you’ll begin to notice that when left to its own devices your mind chatters away all day long, influencing everything you see, do and feel.

This chatter is based on all of your past, learned, and inherited experiences and information. The neuron pathways in your brain were created by your family, challenges, relationships, education and all the other information you take in from the world around you.

In all the endless possibilities that are available in every moment, your chatter stays focused on a small set of experiences, looping through them continuously and filtering everything you do through this loop.

Your Chattering Mind does this mainly to keep you safe, help you along your path effectively and efficiently, and move you towards what you find pleasurable.

However, most times, your Chattering Mind takes over your Inner Attention and moves you into an automatic and unconscious way of being. Because the Chattering Mind uses only your past experiences to steer you towards safety, when left unchecked, it covers over your ability to see the present moment clearly.

This limits the natural openness of your true Adventurous Self. And this in turn limits your experience of the magic of your Life unfolding moment by moment.

Your Chattering Mind is important.

Even more important is learning how to have a conscious relationship with your own mind.

To get to know your Chattering Mind, keep bringing your Inner Attention back to your breath each time you notice it’s lost in your chatter. Then, practice waking up your Inner Attention to what you are saying to yourself and how it is influencing your experience. It’s very simple, but as you’ll come to see, quite challenging.

Every great adventure has its challenges – and getting to know yourself is no exception!

2 Comments

  1. In a meditation and sharing with my sangha recently, someone offered what sounds beautiful to me.
    They shared that they have been practicing returning to the present during listening with the words “here” and “hear”
    A play on words, she plays between listening deeply and being present.
    It may not stop the chattering, and yet it seems to bring her back to mindfulness and heartfulness.

  2. this is beautiful. i’ll sometimes just repeat to myself “this, this…” it doesn’t stop the chattering, but as you said, brings me back to mindfulness.

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