Do You ‘Tune’ Your Mind?

Take someone who just bought the highest end of cross-country bicycle (because it’s the trend now, aside from fixies). He took it out on a x-country adventure over the weekend and for some reason it kept making noises. At the end of the track, a bike enthusiast asked him “did you set your bike?” The answer was “it’s a Rp. 85 million bike, what else do I have to set?”

You can see my eye brows touched my hair line at this moment.

Oh, but wait. The conversation goes.

“Well, what needs to be set?” the new cyclist asked. The bike enthusiast started explaining about adjusting the seat so that it won’t touch the back wheel and how to best set the shock gear. The respond, “Well, can you do all those for me? I’ll pay you whatever it takes.”

This is a true story.

And this story reminds me of how we use our own minds. It’s almost like we don’t care about how it works, what it can do and especially how it can benefit us. We have the tendency of wanting instant results without the process of “setting our own mind”. What we do instead is “rely on other people to set our minds” sometimes not realizing that we’ve set it to stupid. No wonder we live in such chaos.

My mind and my body are like machineries – like my 12 year old Toyota Kijang – they need to be paid attention to, need occasional setting, tuning, spooring, you name it.

1. Understand the basic.

The mind is like a play-dough. It will think, function and perform just the way it’s been set, may it be by you, by others, by society, consciously and unconsciously. So pay attention on what kind of mind you have. Do you have the joyful, beautiful and abundant mind? Or the pessimistic, cynical, small mind that end up just putting you in a horrible mood all the time? Is it an accountable mind or a blaming and judging mind? Does it see beauty and strength of the world or all the chaos, mistakes and sins of others?

You can adjust your mood, by adjusting your thoughts and mind. So, it’s not fair to say “he/she makes me feel sad, angry or offended.” Nobody can make you feel sad, angry or offended without your permission.

Yet, we’re not the Buddhist monks who seem to have found bliss on earth. So it’s okay to fluctuate. That gives us space for tuning. Of course, if we ignore the tuning process, like any other machineries, it’ll end up dysfunctional, really fast. So, how can we ‘tune’ the mind?

2. Set the ‘fuel’ to full of joy.

I don’t wake up happy every day. Not yet. Maybe soon. There are days I have to will myself out of bed, from talking out loud, stretching crazy like a five-year-old, making loud arrrggghhhh noises just to get myself awake. There are days I look in the mirror and say “damn, I look like crap.” There are days all I want is to disappear from the world. But then, there’s that word: responsibilities. I have that too. So, I better psyche myself out.

Like changing the radio stations to the ones that make you feel better, do whatever it takes to ‘set’ your mood to joy. From listening to your favourite playlist, dancing in the showers, praying, saying your gratitudes, or even, learning from Alice (from Wonderland), think of six miracles before breakfast. Know what makes you smile. Know what energizes you. Know what makes you beam with ecstasy. Because it’s different for different people. Each day do something to make you feel happy, until this becomes a habit.

For me, this is why I have my ‘routines’ in the morning (the reason I am up by the crack of dawn). I look forward to my morning meditation, writing in my journal of my intent and purpose of the day, saying my gratitudes, putting on feel-good music while taking a shower. I make sure I do NOT touch my blackberry, check my twitter and facebook timeline before I do all that stuff. This is how I ‘set’ my day.

3. Pay attention to the temperature.

As I was washing my hands at the restroom in Darmawangsa Square, I didn’t realize I was singing out loud until a lady says to me “Wow, someone is happy. That is very rare.” I was caught off guard, but she’s right. When I’m happy, I sing. I also know that when I am anxious, stressed, sad… I tense up. And when it gets worse, I get sick. I don’t get sick very often. So I know when I am sick, there is something not right in my head or heart.

The ‘symptoms’ are different for different people. Some eat a lot while others can’t eat. Some can’t sleep. Some get rashes. Some have high blood pressures and cholesterol. I don’t really believe in “genetics” – that’s just ‘pasrah’ with your condition. I believe that the mind and the body has that intelligent capacity to heal itself – if we believe in it.

When I realize my temperature is at ‘hot’ instead of the ‘cool-singing-hippy’ type, I know I have to go to the ‘tuning’ mode again. One of the best tip I have is learning from animals. When they get tensed up, they start shaking their body rigorously to let go off the negative energy. Yes, shaking. So I will just start moving my body around aimlessly like a crazy nut for a few seconds.. or go running

Then, I indulge in an activity that I know it’ll make me smile, like sipping on a warm well made coffee, listening to my favourite music, or call a friend whom I know for sure can make me laugh.

4. Remember to rest.

Sleep is my favourite activity by far. So I know I better make it as effective as possible. I make sure I sleep and I sleep well. But rest is not just about sleep. Rest is about resting the mind and the body. Stop thinking and stop moving. To just be, like sitting quietly watching the dawn breaks, staring into the distance; sitting in the taxi, listening to your favourite tunes while closing my eyes instead of thinking about work, tweeting or answering emails.

Having the ability to say no. To trust that everything’s going to turn out great. To trust that the world’s not come to an end when you take that 30 minutes break. Rest is your quality time with you – not with your phone, with your computer or other people. Rest is recharging. Rest is about breaking habits. Rest is not about how much time you spend doing nothing, but how effective you can relax yourself with the amount of time you have. Because you can go on a luxury vacation and still not rest.

As Dale Carnegie says it best, “It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” So how do you ‘tune’ your mind today?