Ashok Gupta explains how to quiet a busy mind by observing thoughts without identifying with them. When you shine conscious attention on unconscious mental chatter, it freezes like an insect under a spotlight. Breaking the cycle of thought about thought about emotion is what actually calms reactivity.
You know, it's a bit like having a spotlight, you know? Do you often find sometimes you might have an insect or something running along the ground. And as soon as you turn the light on, it freezes because it knows that it's been found out. So it freezes to hope that the attacker won't see it. That's the animal freeze response that we all have. And it's the same with the mind. The mind is running around doing all its crazy stuff. And the moment you put a spotlight on goes, oh, I've been found out. There's a big spotlight on me, all right. Perhaps I won't be so busy because I'm being watched now. And in the same way, when we bring all that unconscious stuff that's going on in our mind, that's using up energy. Because remember, worrying and thinking too much uses up a huge amount of energy, drains us when we put a spotlight on it. Then it freezes because it's been found out. And then the whole mind calms down because it's being watched, because we've not identified with it anymore. Because the secret is, the reason our mind gets agitated is because we have a thought. Then we catch on the thought and have a thought about the thought. Then we have an emotion about the thought, then we have a thought about the emotion. And thoughts and emotions build up into a cycle, and we get so agitated. Whereas when we practice meditation, we practice the art of separating ourselves and observing our minds, not being identified with our minds anymore. And therefore, even if the mind's reacting or doing something, we're like, hey, let's relax. And the mind calms its reaction down because it thinks, well, can't be that important because I can't seem to persuade him or her to get carried away. It calms down, and we enjoy the peace of not being an overreactive human being anymore.
