Touchstones, A Tool For Taming "Monkey Mind"

Description

This simple mental tool can retrain our mind from it's habit of running off on stories about the future or past. This creates clarity of mind and prevents us from going down the road of anxiety, worry, or stress.

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Tags: Kenton Whitman,ReWild University,Human Rewilding,personal rewilding,mindfulness,how to,bushcraft,survival,wilderness survival skills,how to survive in the woods

Video Transcription

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hello friends

there are times okay I mean what we're talking about here is our unruly mind okay and there are these times that we all experience when that unruly mind is is taking us down some roads we don't want to go down and you know I'm thinking of various of the forest monks have been able to work with really Russell with this I'm sitting here our day's going well and my mind starts to think about something and it starts to get anxious or it starts to get a little pissed you know it starts to think about that thing yesterday that somebody said and and it starts to go down a road and pretty soon I'm far away from that initial thought and I'm down into me you've already got the scenario totally planned right you're gonna say this to them and they're gonna say that back to you well then you're gonna do this and then that's gonna happen and you know pretty soon you have like a fence up between your yards and which moments before you were doing fine yeah and so this is something that that is basic to the human condition is that mind's tendency to run off and tell stories so you're telling me it's normal telling you that it is it is normal I'm also saying that we can train ourselves out of it and we can come to a place where our mind is not doing this all the time it's not easy but what we're gonna give you today is a technique called touchstones which can make a huge difference so what's the touchstone well a touchstone

is something that you choose for yourself and something that has meaning and something that is a signal to that runaway mind that it needs to come back and so it's in it basically an awareness when you have that touchstone you are saying oh I notice I am going down the road or I'm back in this pattern again I am going to get mad I'm going to have anxiety I am trying to control something it's whatever thing it might be you could use it for numerous different things but that touchstone is I notice I'm doing it and I come back to my touchstone and my touchstone could be a phrase it could be give some example so there's a lot yeah we have to we have to choose something and just try this as your touchstone for a lot and so it could be it could be a happy song for you it could be you know if you have God in your life it could be a state of bhakti or love for God it could be a state of love for a person it could be a little saying a poem by throw or somebody that inspires you a little quote for some people it helps just to have something sensory so for instance I can focus down on the palm of my hand I can look at the lines and get lost in my senses for a moment in those lines maybe you wear a ring and you're just going to look at that ring or that necklace and whatever your touchstone is the the practice here is that as you said ever your mind whenever you notice that your mind is running away with you it's it's starting to take you for a ride if you notice that you come back to your touchstone and the power of this is that instead of oh I'm down here I'm being taken for a ride again my mind's doing that thing and it's taking me off into lala land

instead of thinking what I do now how did I deal with this and kind of just lost we're saying oh I'm doing it again I'm so awful right it's like you all different Road we're going down double self-punishment it's simple with it good touchstone yeah yeah it's it's simple because your mind has a direct place you've already pre decided this right no decision-making right because when our mind has been taken for a ride notice and you can verify this for yourself your mind is gonna be saying this is the most important thing in there's nothing else between the neighbor the fence that this is the only important I have to make them pay for it so how am I gonna do that yeah it's the mind cannot make decisions good decisions when it's already coursing down one way that's why we have to have that touchstone you're in a state of confusion you're in a state of vulnerability if your mind is taking you for a ride you're already almost out for the count you've been hit double triple you're really you're almost down you have to have that one thing that you can come back to which is just boom on my feet into my into my fighting stance and here it is I'm on my mind right to my touchstone right like a little ray of sunshine in the middle of the storm and you can stop you're looking at everything that's swirling around and the one ray of Sun sunshine this is coming down and you have that and you can play around and see you know but decide on something and stick with it and then here's the thing that I've learned from doing this you might have to do this a hundred times a day yeah okay especially first thirds training but eventually it becomes almost automatic I noticed for me sometimes I find myself using my touchstone and there I am like oh I'm using my touchstone and it's almost as though I used my touchstone without awareness my brain went down a road and then I came back and used my touchdown I noticed oh I've used my touchstone I don't even necessarily remember why I might have used my touchstone because here I am just you happily going through it and it's wonderful whatever it is make sure it has a really nice feeling to you a really good sense good positive positive connotation positive energy for you so that you love to use it because what eventually happens at least I found this for myself at first I thought huh I have to do the touch something there's one more thing right and then I said okay I'm gonna try it and I really liked it I love my touchstone and I love it so much that when I notice I'm going down the road I'm like whoa I'm going down the road I get to use my touchstone I can't wait cuz I love my touchstone it makes me feel so good and so eventually and maybe this will happen for you you start to be excited that you get to use your touchstone it's really it's really unexpected that that was beautiful because that sums up this wall quest for more mindfulness for starting to you know however you look at it and disciplining our mind or getting our mind to not be often monkeyland not running off on its own and taking us for a ride first it takes training it's tough because our mind has well-worn grooves and it wants to follow those grooves over and over but if we can start to see if I'm in a groove that's a good thing because I've noticed I'm in a groove and I can hop out of it right let me go to that touchstone and trust me if something is so important that you really need to think about it you're gonna come back to it alright and in a nice little technique there is it if your mind is saying you've got to think about the fence between my yard and in Fred's yard because ah you've just got to think about it write down and say I am going to think about the fence between my yard and Fred's yard two o'clock this afternoon and set aside ten minutes for it and then at two o'clock you can sit down for ten minutes and if that thing really is important you'll be able to apply yourself to it chances are I'm gonna say 95% or more of the things that our mind is telling us is so important to focus on is just taking us for a ride and is actually not important as you said if it's important your gut will actually know right so we don't think of our mind we think with our gut we think the physiology and some of that's response but some of it is yep okay I need to take that burning pot off the stove right now smoke detectors going off that is an actuality yeah I when I love about the touchstone is that I'm a perfectionist trying to recover and when you have the touchstone there is very these little permission flags it's like it's okay if your mind goes down the road because guess what you have a touchstone so it's okay I know in the past I sort of felt this is just my perspective I felt that I had to have control of my mind why do I not have control of my mind and if I found myself in story land or whatever else like what is wrong with me that I can't simply do this but the touchstone says hey here's an opportunity go off down and then what guess what come back to the touchstone and it it's just it lightened me up a lot it allowed me to make mistakes if you will or have my mind go off and it also provided safety and what's the word I'm looking for like a touchstone after that initial hard training those you're gonna start making grooves over torque to your touchstone right and then what you were talking about is gonna start to happen you're gonna automatically start to get you know derailed off dark paths onto the path to your touchstone so that's where all this becomes easier and easier the more time you put into it it's just like running that first run it's gonna hurt and then you know it's a trail run around here then becomes you months - in nah this is really fun I look forward to it because you warn those new patterns and you do have neuroplasticity no matter who you are you can do this you got it it will take some work but it will become fun after a while and it will change so much because you won't be taken for a ride in the same way by your mind yeah try it and then don't make a decision about it until you've done it for a while like truly done it for a while you know you made a commitment every day because you can start you can kind of do it and there you go yeah that's great and then Peters off and you don't do it anymore so try it and after a period of time we've really done it and then decide how it works for you yeah and how lies - because I'm so curious I want to know it what is your touchstone or have you done this before

what do you experience just all of that share with us in the comments is so so great to hear from you thanks for watching everybody can't wait to hear from you down in the comments love to be on

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[Laughter]

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you

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