Today we’ll look at one way I get my mind back…from the internet, from the news, from thoughts that aren’t helping me become who I want to be…

When there are major things happening in the news…does it take over your mind? 

Do you pay less attention to the people you love, the meaningful work you care about, the life all around you, your own dreams and goals…because you’re not really here? You are over there mentally battling a war? Who is living your life here when you are over there? 

How do you get your brain back? 

One strategy I use is by filling my mind with sound. Not just listening to music, but taking on the challenge of making music. Making music that’s so challenging to play, I don’t have room to think in words. 

The space of my mind becomes filled with sensations, emotions, movements, rhythms, pitches, melodies  and harmonies so that there is no room for words left. 

When I’m done playing the piano, it's as if my mind had a vacation, even though it was actually quite busy. 

It's at this moment that my head is clear. I can then ask the question when a new thought arises: how do I react when I believe this thought? If I act as if this thought is absolutely true, who will I become? Will I become stronger, kinder, more authentic? How will others experience me? 

So we have these two ways that thoughts show up: out of nowhere…and self-created. 

One process you can’t exactly control: thoughts out of nowhere, but you do decide how to respond. The other process is your art form! You can create thoughts you want! 

Once you have a thought, (pink elephant) that’s it! You’ve imagined a pink elephant. But is it really you? Or was that me? Did I put that thought in your brain? 

I love piano specifically because of this freedom it gives my mind to think in pure sound and not think in words. It is a deep kind of mental break…I can’t compare it to anything else except maybe if I go on a camping trip with no internet (and all of the thinking the internet generates). 

And when my brain has detached from thinking in words and in past/future and fully detached from being hooked online…

I get to renegotiate my relationship with the words that are in my head. 

I get to renegotiate my relationships with the internet. 

I get to renegotiate the story that I have about who I will become. 

I get to show up in very polarizing times…with a stable and clear mind. 

And that is when I am the most powerful.