Vision (noun): Merriam-Webster
2 a: a thought, concept, or object formed by the imagination
b: a manifestation to the senses of something immaterial
3 a: the act or power of imagination
b: unusual discernment or foresight
I wanted to begin with the definition of vision in THIS context! So now that, that's out of the way, let us discuss...
Your vision is your WHY in life!
The root of success, happiness, and contentment, all lie in the mind and in the ability to understand and wield our thoughts! Ok, real quick...
Wield (Verb): Merriam-Webster
1: to deal successfully with: MANAGE
2: to handle effectively
3: to exert one's authority by means of
4: to have at one's command or disposal
This means learning to direct (not control) your thoughts and mind stuff at will NO MATTER the external circumstances, and no matter what information the physical senses are receiving from the outer world. To manifest a vision into material form, you have to HOLD that vision and sustain it as long as possible without wavering, and BELIEVE in it, no matter what is being said, taught, or told to you! We often lose sight of our vision or struggle with manifesting our vision because we have ruminating mental stories and content that contradict our vision! You'll never get anywhere with that, you'll just be living in a loop! A mental groundhog day!
Mindfulness helps you to notice the nature of your mind, noticing what thought patterns are getting in the way of manifesting your vision. With mindfulness, you have the power to notice your mental habits and change the ones that contradict your vision. If you don't learn to do this, then your mind won't believe you or believe in your vision (doubt) and neither will you!
Changing your mental habits will change your perception which will change your actions, thereby changing your outcomes! It's mathin'. 🧮
How you perceive everything around you, formulates and influences the nature of your thoughts and belief! The power of perception! The power of belief! The power of imagination! Align the 3 is the goal.
Your perception should be in agreement with your beliefs, your beliefs should be in agreement with your imagination (in any order). Again, we mathin'. 🧮
So without a strong and stable mind, without clear vision and perception, you can easily become distracted, forget and experience streams of mindless moments allowing anything and everything to influence your mind! Unfortunately, most people spend more time mindless than mindful.
Mindfulness is a direct way of reprogramming the mind, moment by moment, day by day! The magic of mindfulness literally transforms you as a person! There are levels to the application of mindfulness, so even if you're reading this and you think you've got it, you're mindful, I assure you you can take it a step further.
At the most basic level, mindfulness can moderate your behavior. Take it a step further, you become less reactive and intentionally present, more conscious. Take it to a higher level, you are now literally reprogramming DEEP conditioning that has shaped your personality and this only occurs with meditation! Take it a level higher and you will experience radical reconditioning of the innate tendencies to which we owe our suffering, and this requires the development of insight experience!
Insight Experience: "An experience that challenges our assumptions and expectations in a way that forces us to reassess and revise our intuitive understanding of how things really are." - The Mind Illuminated by John Yates, PhD
When you allow anything and everything to influence your mind, you:
Lose sight and miss opportunities right in front of you
Waver and sway, struggling to take definite actions or make definite choices (fearful/doubtful)
Become easily discouraged in the face of the unknown and unexpected along the way (stopping or slowing progress/growth)
Lose access to hear your intuition, leaving you to make decisions with your unstable, fleeting mind (confusion, delusion)
There are 5 hindrances of the mind, this is taught in any meditation training, yoga, or Vedic-related course/training. These are also related to the root causes of human suffering in Eastern philosophy & religion. Those 5 hindrances are:
Aversion & Desire
Laziness/Lethargy
Worry
Agitation
Doubt
These 5 Hindrances manifest:
Procrastination and/or Resistance
Forgetting/Mind wandering
Impatience & Monkey mind
Mental dullness
Physical discomfort
These are psychological obstacles both in meditation practice, personal development and in daily life!
So! Why am I sharing all of this? I am intensly dedicated in my mission of making sure that society undertands the importance of the mind, mental health and understand that it is WORTH the effort it takes to manage, repair, strengthen and recondition the mind because not only does it dictate your outward experience, the quality of your life, but it literally dictates your physical health as well. It's a terrible downward spiral when the mind is left to manage itself! This is how we find ourselves in misery and suffering! I have something for you though!
As you all know (if you open my emails), I have recently launched an ONLINE mindfulness meditation coaching program! If you want to skip right to that for more info, click the hyperlink!
In my mission to invite others to this experience of the mind, the experience of training, and managing the mind, the experience of taking the seat of the observer, and the experience of the profound benefits that come with this kind of mind training, I released a mindfulness meditation practice for you all to try! This alone is a great place to start if you want to kick off your journey on your own, are a beginner and need somewhere to start, or you already practice but are experiencing struggle (like some of the hinderances mentioned above).
Take a 🎧 listen to 🎙 "Within The Content Of Your Mind" and experience exactly what's been discussed today. This episode ends with 20 minutes of practicing mindfulness meditation to remedy the hinderance of forgetting and mind wandering! I suggest downloading this episode and practicing daily for results! Each week I'll be releasing episodes covering the 5 hinderances with practices for each! So subscribe if you haven't already!
More news: I've also recently launched From Within +
A members only area of my podcast where I'll be sharing and releasing bonus episodes and premium content. You can get more info about that by clicking the hyperlink above! And as always! Thank you for your support! I am deeply grateful!
~Shi
P.S. I didn't use any AI to write this, and I won't for my blogs! My blogs are my voice! Period!