Welcome back to the Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III here with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. I want to do something today that you might be able to just listen to in the background while you're working, while you're jogging, while you're working out. I want to do this because it's a chapter in a book that I read every once in a while and it allows me to get a little clarity on where I'm at. And so what I'm going to recommend for you is I'm going to recommend that you find a book called The Untethered Soul and it's by Michael Singer. It's a book that has really been a huge inspiration and helped me in my life, especially with times where you might be just struggling with different things or you have some things going on inside your head. You know, we all have things going on inside our head that make it difficult sometimes to focus on our life at hand. You know, we're reliving the past, we're worried about the future, and those are the things that are going to distract you. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to read you the first chapter of this book because the title is so fitting of what you might be dealing with a lot of times in life. Now, this might be negative, it might be positive stuff. The point is, is even when you have a lot of opportunities, you know, things are going around in your head. The title of this chapter, chapter one, in the book called The Untethered Soul is the voice inside your head. How fitting is that? So it starts out with the kind of a little quote. It says, shoot, I can't remember her name. What's her name? Darn, here she comes. What is it? Sally? Sue? Man, she just told me yesterday, what's the matter with me? This is going to be embarrassing. And then the book chapter starts. It says, in case you haven't noticed, you have a mental dialogue going on inside your head that never stops. It keeps going and going and going. Have you ever wondered why it talks in there? How does it decide what to say and when to say it? How much of what it says turns out to be true? How much of what it says is even important? And if right now you are hearing, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a voice inside of my head. That's the voice we're talking about. If you're smart, you'll take the time to step back, examine the voice, and get to know it a little better. The problem is you're too close to be objective. You have to step back and watch it converse. While you're driving, you hear internal conversations like, wasn't I supposed to call Fred? I should have. Oh my God, I can't believe I forgot. He's going to be so mad. He may never talk to me again. Maybe I should stop and call him right now. No, I don't want to stop the car right now. Notice that the voice takes both sides of the conversation. It doesn't care which side it takes just as long as it keeps on talking. When you're tired and trying to sleep, it's the voice inside your head that says, what am I doing? I can't go to sleep. I forgot to call Fred. I remember in the car, but I didn't do it. If I don't call now, oh wait, it's too late. I shouldn't call him now. I don't even know why I thought about it. I need to fall asleep. Oh shoot, now I can't sleep. I'm not tired anymore, but I have a big day tomorrow. I have to get up early. Boy, that sounds familiar. No wonder you can't sleep. Why do you even tolerate the voice talking to you all the time? Even if what it's saying is soothing and nice, it's still disturbing everything you're doing. If you spend some time observing this mental voice, the first thing you'll notice is that it never shuts up. When left to its own, it just talks. Imagine if you were to see something walking around constantly talking to himself. You'd think he was strange. You'd wonder if he's the one who's talking and he's the one who's listening. He obviously knows what's going on, what's going to be said before he says it. So what's the point in saying it? The same is true for the voice inside your head. Why is it talking? It's you who's talking, and it's you who's listening. And when the voice argues with itself, who is it arguing with? Who could possibly win? It gets very confusing. Just listen. I think I should get married. No, you know you're not ready. You'll be sorry, but I love him. Oh, come on. You felt that way about Tom. What if you had married him? If you watch carefully, you'll see that it's just trying to find a comfortable place to rest. It will change sides in a moment if that seems to help, and it doesn't even quiet down when it finds out that it's wrong. It simply adjusts its viewpoint and keeps on going. If you pay attention, these mental patterns will become obvious to you. It's actually a shocking realization when you first notice that your mind is constantly talking. You might even try to yell at it in a feeble attempt to shut it up, but then you realize that's the voice yelling at the voice. Shut up. I want to go to sleep. Why do you have to talk all the time? Obviously you can't shut it up. The best way to free yourself, and I want you to listen to this the best way to free yourself from this incessant chatter is to step back and view it objectively Just view the voice as a vocalizing mechanism that is capable of making it appear like someone is in there talking to you Don't think about it. Just notice it. No matter what the voice is saying, it's all the same. It doesn't matter if it's saying nice things or mean things, worldly things or spiritual things. It doesn't matter because it's still just a voice talking inside your head. In fact, the only way to get your distance from this voice is to stop differentiating what it is saying. Stop feeling that one thing it says is you and the other thing it says is not you. If you're hearing it talk, it's obviously not you. You are the one that hears the voice. You are the one that notices that it's talking. You do hear it when it talks, don't you? Make it say hello right now. Say it over and over a few times. Now shout it inside. Can you hear yourself saying hello inside? Of course you can. There is a voice talking and there is you who notices the voice talking. The problem is that it's easy to notice the voice saying hello, but it's difficult to see that no matter what the voice says, it is still just a voice talking and you listening. There is absolutely nothing that voice can say that is more than anything else it says. Suppose you were looking at three objects, a flower pot, a photograph, and a book, and were then asked, which of these objects is you. You'd say none of them. It's the one who's looking at what you're putting in front of me. It doesn't matter what you put in front of me. It's always going to be me looking at it. You see, it's an act of subject perceiving various objects. This is also true of hearing the voice inside. It doesn't make any difference what it's saying. You are the one who is aware of it. As long as you think that one thing isn't saying is you, as long as you think that one thing isn't saying is you, but the other thing it's saying is not you, you've lost your objectivity. You may want to think of yourself as the part that says the nice things, but that's still not the voice. That's still the voice talking. You may think what it says, but it's not you. You may, I'm sorry, you may like what it says, but it's not you. And this is something I underlined. There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of your mind. You are the one who hears it. If you don't understand this, you'll try to figure out which of the many things the voice says is really you. People go through so many changes in the name of trying to find themselves. They want to discover which of these voices, which of these aspects of their personality is who they really are. The answer is simple. You're none of the voices. If you watch it objectively, you will come to see that much of what the voice says is meaningless. Most of the talking is just a waste of time and energy. The truth is, and I underlined this, most of life will unfold in accordance with forces far outside your control, regardless of what your mind says about it. It's like sitting down at night and deciding whether you want the sun to come up in the morning. The bottom line is the sun will come up and the sun will go down. Billions of things are going on in this world. You can think about it all you want, but life is still going to keep on happening. In fact, your thoughts have far less impact on this world than you would like to think. If you're willing to be objective and watch all your thoughts, you'll see that the vast majority of them really have no relevance. They have no effect on anything or anybody except you. They are simply making you feel better or worse about what is going on, what has gone on in the past or what might go on in the future. If you spend your time hoping that it doesn't rain tomorrow, you're wasting your time. Your thoughts don't change the rain. You will someday come to see that there is no use for the incessant internal chatter, and there is no reason to constantly attempt to figure it all out. Everything you will see, I'm sorry, eventually you will see that the real cause of problems is not life itself. It's the commotion the mind makes about life that really causes all the problems. Now this raises a serious question. If so much of the voice says is meaningless and unnecessary, then why does it even exist? Well, the secret to answering this question lies in understanding why it says what it says when it says it. For years, well, let me go back. I'm going to skip to another part of the book. For example, in some cases, the mental voice talks for the same reason that a tea kettle whistles. That is, there's a buildup of pressure or energy inside that needs to be released. If you watch objectively you will see that when there a buildup of nervous fearful and desire energies inside the voice becomes extremely active This is easy to see when you are angry with someone and you feel like telling them off Just watch how many times the inner voice tells them off before you actually see them. When energy builds up inside you want to do something about it. That voice talks because you're not okay inside and talking releases the energy. You'll notice however that even when you're not particularly bothered by something it still talks. When you're walking down the street it says things like, look at that dog. It's a Labrador. Hey, there's another dog in that car. He looks a lot like my first dog, Shadow. Whoa, there's an Oldsmobile. It's got Alaska plates. It's funny because individuals like me, you know, the constant ADD, we're always having these things going on in our mind. Anyway, back to the book. It's actually narrating the world for you, but why do you need this? You already see what's happening outside. How does it help to repeat it to yourself through a mental voice. You should examine this very closely. With a simple glance, you instantly take in a tremendous detail of whatever you're looking at. If you see a tree, you effortlessly see the branches, the leaves, and the flowering buds. Why then do you have to verbalize what you've already seen? What you'll see if you study this carefully is that the narration makes you feel more comfortable within the world around you. Like backseat driving, it makes you feel as though things are more in your control. You actually feel like you have some relationship with them. A tree is no longer just a tree in the world that has nothing to do with you. It's a tree that you saw, you labeled, and you judged. By verbalizing it mentally, you thought the initial direct experience of the world into the realm of your thoughts. There it becomes integrated with your other thoughts, such as those making up your value systems and historical experiences. Now, this next little part of the book, I highlighted just a ton of it. So I really want you to pay attention to this last couple of paragraphs before I end. Take a moment to examine the difference between your experience of the outside world and your interactions with your mental world. When you're just thinking, you're free to create whatever thoughts you want in your mind, and these thoughts are expressed through the voice. You are very accustomed to settling into the playground of the mind and creating and manipulating thoughts. This inner world is an alternate environment that is under your control. The outside world, however, marches to its own laws. When the voice narrates the outside world to you, those thoughts are now side by side in parity with all your other thoughts. All these thoughts intermix and actually influence your experience of the world around you. What you end up experiencing is really a personal presentation of the world according to you, rather than the stark, unfiltered experience of what it really is out there. This mental manipulation of the outer experience allows you to buffer reality as it comes in. For example, there are myriad things that you see at any given moment, yet you only narrate a few of them. The ones you discuss in your mind are the ones that matter to you. With this subtle form of pre-processing, you manage to control the experience of reality so that it fits together inside your mind. Your consciousness is actually experiencing your mental model of reality, not actual reality itself. That's so important. I'm going to read that again. You manage to control the experience of reality so that it fits together inside your mind. your consciousness is actually experiencing your mental model of reality, not reality itself. You have to watch this very carefully because you do it all the time. You're walking outside in the winter. You start to shiver and the voice says it's cold. Now, how did that help you? You already knew it was cold. You're the one who's experiencing the cold. Why is it telling you this? You recreate the world within your mind because you can control your mind, whereas you can't control the world. This is why you mentally talk about it in your mind. If you can't get the world the way you like it, you internally verbalize it, judge it, complain about it, and then decide what to do about it. This makes you feel more empowered. When your body experiences cold, there may be nothing you can do to affect the cold, but when your mind verbalizes it's cold, you can say, we're almost home, just a few more minutes. Now you feel better. In the thought world, there's always something you can do to control the experience. Basically, you recreate the outside world inside yourself and then you live in your mind. What if you decided not to do this? If you decide not to narrate and instead just consciously observe the world you will feel more open and exposed This is because you really don know what will happen next and your mind is accustomed to helping you. It does this by processing your current experiences in a way that makes them fit with your views of the past and visions of the future. All of this helps to create a semblance of control. If your mind doesn't do this, you simply become too uncomfortable. Reality is just too real for most of us, so we temper it with our mind. You will come to see that the mind talks all the time because you gave it that job to do. You use it as a protection mechanism, a form of defense. Ultimately, it makes you feel more secure. As long as that's what you want, you'll be forced to constantly use your mind to buffer yourself from life instead of living life. This world is unfolding and really has very little to do with you or your thoughts. It was here long before you came and it will be here long after you leave. In the name of attempting to hold the world together, you're just trying to hold yourself together. True personal growth, I want you to listen to this. True personal growth is about transcending the part of you that is not okay and needs protection. This is done by constantly remembering that you are the one inside that notices the voice talking. This is the way out. The one inside who is aware that you are always talking to yourself about yourself is always silent. It is a doorway to the depths of being. To be aware that you are watching the voice talk is to stand on the threshold of a fantastic inner journey. If used properly, the same mental voice that has been a source of worry, distraction, and general neurosis can become the launching ground for true spiritual awakening. Come to know the one who watches the voice, and you will come to know one of the great mysteries of creation. So that's the end of chapter one of the Untethered Soul. And the reason I bring it up, I just want to plant the seed to you that, and I've said this before. you are not your mind. Your mind is a tool. And unfortunately, you've given it a job. And when you don't direct and manage and train that tool, it works with or without your support. And generally, it works against you. In order for you to be able to create the ultimate destiny in life that you want to live, you've got to get control of that tool. You've got to get control of your mind. And the number one, listen to me carefully, the number one way to do that is to step back and recognize that you are not your mind. The minute you do that, you become less emotional and more objective. When you're fearful, you're angry, you're upset, you're depressed, you're anxious, and you step back and ask yourself a question. That's the way you do it. You say, why am I feeling this way? Why is this happening? I'm the person analyzing the emotions. I'm not the emotion. I truly believe that if you are to create some objectivity, which meditation helps, affirmations, or just pure awareness, studying these concepts, you will become more aware of your true, true internal nature. You are the one that has the creative power to create your life. You are the one that directs your mind. Your mind does not direct you, but you must battle for that control and battle for that objectivity on a daily basis. Because make no mistake, if you are not controlling and tethering your mind, your mind's controlling you. It's creating those experiences and that lens and that filter that you're letting run rampant in your mind is creating your life. And that is the reason that you are in the circumstances, the situation, the life or living the life that you are living now. So those are my thoughts for today. I hope you'll take a minute and just kind of think about that. I might add a few chapters of this book later on in the podcast, but for today, I want you to realize that the untethered soul is your ability to be able to break from the internal chatter and step back and become consciously a creator of your life. And I believe you can do this. I believe you have the ultimate power to make that change. And I hope you will think about that over the weekend. I'm so excited that you shared your day with me today. I hope there's something that has inspired or motivated you. If it's something you've learned, please share it with someone around you. It'll help you to teach it. It'll help you to learn it by teaching and share the message as well. My name is George Wright III. This has been the Daily Mastermind Podcast. Have an amazing weekend.
