Are you in a state of confusion? Are you having sleepless nights over making the right decision or about where your life is heading? Is your confusion causing you to feel anxious, helpless and desperate?
Fear not, there is a simple way out of confusion and it will put your mind at absolute rest. Let’s see what it is.
Here’s the Main Reason Why Confusion Arises
Before we get into the solution, it’s important to know why confusion arises in the first place.
Confusion arises when your mind is trying to figure out the perfect solution to a situation and it is unable to do so because it sees a negative in every possible outcome.
The mind gets plagued with all these ‘What If‘ questions. What if I get rejected? What if everyone laughs at me? What if I am not able to live up to everyone’s expectations? What if I fail? So on and so forth.
Ultimately you feel drained, depressed and anxious losing your appetite and having sleepless nights.
Only a very small percentage of humans live a life free of confusion. These humans don’t live by their mind but from a deeper place of wisdom and intelligence. Let’s just call it “stillness” or “silent presence”.
If you, like most humans, live your life dictated by mind activity then you are bound to feel confused very often.
Here’s why..
Why is the Mind Always Confused?
Your mind or “the ego” is nothing but a bundle of conditioning.
It usually consists of stored up data of the past and its interpretations. Of course the interpretations are very individualistic depending on his/her conditioning, so there is no ultimate truth in there.
All perspectives towards the end are just one of the many perspectives possible for a given situation – no perspective is ultimately accurate or truthful. You can identify with these pointers on why the mind is always confused:
- When you live by your mind you live in the world of perceptions, no perception is the ultimate truth.
- The future can never be known on the basis of the past, it can be predicted but no prediction is ever going to define reality.
- Life is ultimately uncertain, the mind always seeks certainty and hence the conflict and confusion.
- There is no such thing as the right decision, it’s just one direction that your life heads in (may be as per your destiny). All directions ultimately merge into a path of learning. The mind in its naivety believes in the concept of “right” decision.
So you can see that if you live by the mind you are forever bound to confusion, no matter how many self-improvements seminars you attend!
7 Pointers That Will Free Your from Confusion
Here are some simple yet powerful pointers that will guide you to become free from the state of confusion:
1.) Stay in “Not Knowing”
Don’t be afraid to ‘Not Know’.
Get comfortable with “not knowing”. The wisest person on earth ultimately understood that all knowing is still worthless compared to “not knowing”.
Live the mystery. Life will always be a mystery, just embrace it.
2.) Stop Thinking and Get into Stillness
This might sound counter-intuitive but it is still the best thing you can do in this situation.
Here’s why:
Ideas flow to you when your mind is still.
When the mind is cluttered with thoughts, it’s really hard for good ideas to make their way through. The mind keeps recycling stale thoughts without giving room for fresh new ones.
The best way to attract the right ideas is to stop thinking and get into ‘Stillness Mode’.
Just for a few seconds, stop thinking and focus your attention of your breath. Feel yourself breath in and breath out. If that feels good, continue this focus for as long as you want. As you divert your attention from the thoughts to your breath, the thoughts begin to slow down, the mind settles down and you get into stillness. It’s as simple as that.
This is best done during the night hours when there is not too much distraction around.
Practice stillness and know that life will guide you towards making the right decision.
3.) Ground Yourself in the Present Moment
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you have. Make the ‘now’ the primary focus of your life. –
The mind always keeps making plans for the future but the fact remains that the future cannot be predicted.
Instead bring your attention to the present moment. There is great wisdom and power in the present moment that you miss out on when you are focused on the future. The best way to get into the present moment is to use the stillness exercise described above.
There is a simplicity in just acknowledging the present moment and staying in it instead of wanting to get to the future all the time.
4.) Feel the Fear Behind Your Confusion
Wherever this is confusion, there is this underlying element of fear and insecurity. Be willing to acknowledge this fear. Let it arise, don’t run away from it. Is it a fear of being wronged? Is it a fear of losing freedom? Is it a fear of being ridiculed? Is it a fear of failure?
As the fear arises, consciously feel the energy in your body that this fear generates. When we feel our emotions consciously they start to lose their grip on us and we start to open up more. The more you feel your fear in this manner, the more it loses it’s grip on you. You will be able to think from a neutral place rather than a place of fear.
5.) Don’t Be Afraid of Making Mistakes
The main reason why you feel confused and stuck is that you are afraid of making a mistake. You are afraid of failing.
But the thing is that in life there is no such thing called “failure”. Everything is just pure experience.
Only the conditioned mind labels an experience as failure or success. In-fact there is a seed of growth and learning in every experience we encounter that helps us grow and become more wise.
6.) Develop a Deep Trust in Life
The logical thinking mind will tell you that you can figure life out to a 100%. But we know this is untrue.
No one truly understands life. How and why some things happen is beyond our reasoning and control. So why worry?
Relax and go with the flow. Have trust that life with see you through. Know that the intelligence of life is going to guide you at all times. Know that life has already equipped you with all the resources to live the life you are meant to live.
7.) Realize That No Decision is a Bad Decision
When life pushes you to make a decision, it is pushing you towards valuable life lessons. Every experience your decision makes you live is an experience in growth and you will look back and thank the experience later.
8.) Stay Free of the Mind
If not always, at least for a few hours everyday. Don’t give in to its demands and “horror” stories all the time. You will be surprised to find that you can easily be independent of your mind. You are the awareness in which the mind operates, not the other way around.
Live like a free being instead of being cluttered by the mindful activities of always wanting to “decide” and “predict”. All your confusion ultimately will amount to nothing because life will take its course in the end.
