Relax Your Mind – Loch Kelly
SUMMARY
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Peace is actually the natural condition that helps you to relax your mind and body. It’s our natural state or what’s called, “source of mind” or, “nature of mind” or, “awake awareness.”When you are able to relax your mind, you can use your thoughts very creatively and be fully in your body while not getting caught up in either the chattering mind, distraction or a sense of a small egoic sense of self that feels fearful and worried.
The natural dimension of consciousness, this kind of awake awareness, is the fundamentally available to each of us that helps to relax your mind and body.
Traditionally, the best way to tap into awareness and relax your mind is to slow down, simplify, quiet, calm, focus, retreat, step away from movement in order to not be as caught up.
Ask yourself this simple question to relax your mind and mind. What’s here now when there’s no problem to solve?
We literally have to unhook awareness from thinking and either drop down below or step out to the side or go above or pull back all the way out of our thoughts into this big awareness.
When you drop out of perpetually trying to solve problems, you can discover what’s here and that will help you relax your mind.
Open hearted awareness – This is where people who are in the zone or in the flow optimally work the best with less stress. This is the highest functioning wisdom capacity that comes when you are able to relax your mind and body.
A simple shift would be just unhooking your awareness from thinking and shifting it to your heart to relax your mind and body.
People can awaken and live from an open hearted awareness dimension of consciousness in the middle of an active life. This helps to relax your mind.
TRANSCRIPTION: RELAX YOUR MIND – LOCH KELLY
How To Relax Your Mind and Body
Kamala Chambers
Mindfulness, awareness, and presence are important to relax your mind. How can all of these things help us to be more successful, to be more relaxed, and to experience life to the fullest?
Today, in this interview, we’re going to dive into how you can relax your mind and body.
Luis Congdon
Along the same veins of Eckhart Tolle and The Power of Now, we bring to you our guest, Loch Kelly.
He’s a licensed social worker and therapist. He’s an author who wrote a great book called Shift Into Freedom: The Science and Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness. It was named the top 10 best books of the year by Spirituality & Health Magazine, and one of the best spiritual books of the year by Spirituality & Practice.
Loch Kelly, is an educator and psychotherapist, and recognized leader in the field of meditation and mindfulness. He’s also someone who works with neuroscientists at Yale looking at how mindfulness and awareness practices can bring more peace and compassion to relax your mind and body. So let’s bring on Loch Kelly onto the show.
Kamala Chambers
Loch, it is so great to have you on the show to share how to relax your mind and mind with the Thriving Launchers. Are ready to launch into it?
Loch Kelly
Sure I am and glad to be here.
Luis Congdon
This is a really special interview for me because we’re talking about something that I don’t make public all the time. It is so special and important for me and it’s a real opportunity and invitation for all of you listening right now to learn how to relax your mind. It’s an invitation to slow down because I want to dive deep into something that’s special.
I’ve had these experiences in life and maybe you can relate to it, where you have this experience where you’re just sitting. Maybe you’re drawing or you’re walking but something happens where you feel really at peace and nothing in your life has really shifted.
You still got the bills. Maybe you still have some friends or family members that are upset about something. You still have, “The problems.” They’re still there but somehow, it feels like everything has evaporated and you’re just here, and you’re not sitting in the muck or in the problems. Somehow you’re just completely at peace and you are able to relax your mind.
This is what I want to talk to you about today Loch is why did these moments feel life accidents and then I want to go into the possibility that we can recreate or that we can tap into this energy or this space, this being, and come back, and it doesn’t have to be an accident.
Knowing The Natural Ability To Relax Your Mind
Loch Kelly
Beautiful. Yes. Thank you so much.
I like you began having this unintentional glimpses of this other dimension of consciousness that was so peaceful, so loving, and also wondered the same things, and in some ways. I have spent the last 30 years really curiously exploring both going to many meditation teachers to learn how to relax your mind, from wisdom traditions, studying in school and lately, even working with neuroscientists to really figure out what changes or happening when certain shifts happen.
That ability to relax your mind is actually the natural condition. It’s our natural state or what’s called “source of mind” or, “nature of mind” or, “awake awareness.” A dimension of our intelligence that’s prior to thought, that once it’s accessed, includes thought and eventually from there, while you have peace of mind, can use thought very creatively and be fully in your body while not getting re-caught up in either the chattering mind, distraction or a sense of a small egoic sense of self that feels fearful and worried.
This is an amazing dimension of our natural human consciousness that’s really not on our map in the West so much and certainly, there aren’t that many ways or instruction manuals into how to relax your mind.
Tapping Into Childlike Moments To Relax Your Mind
Luis Congdon
Whenever I’ve gone in that space, and I’m sure a lot of people listening can relate to this. You go into this place that feels very peaceful, feels very wonderful, you relax your mind and then it just disappears and you were like why did it go away?
I remember being in middle school and riding the bus. I have this memory Kamala, being on the bus and feeling really at peace and I’m like, 12 or 13 years old. I feel it. I feel this kind of opening in my mind. I just feel at peace.
Kamala Chambers
Then, you got to school. Didn’t you? Admit it.
Luis Congdon
Usually this was leaving school.
However, what I’m trying to say is at some point, I would start feeling the sense of like, “God, please don’t let this feeling go away. I know it’s going to go away because it has happened before. Please don’t let it go away.”
What’s really striking to me is this conversation can feel really esoteric right now, and yet, with books like The Power of Now and Eckhart Tolle, this stuff is we’re not talking about something way out there.
Oprah totally fell in love with Eckhart Tolle stuff. Jim Carrey fell in love with it and this is what we’re talking about today is this presence and this being in the now.
Loch Kelly
Yes.
I also had moments like that as children and I think many of those listening must have had moments and we pass right over them though if we discover them.
I remember a time when I was young and I would have moments like that and I thought to myself this kind of funny thought. I thought, “Oh, this is what adults must talk about because this is so important,” but of course, that was coming from that peace of mind because adults aren’t talking about this.
Now, the hope is that adult and children can talk about this that we cannot treat it like it’s esoteric or as if it’s only for the fortunate few or it’s only through grace or luck or through the virtue also practice of meditation after 30 years.
My discovery in many wisdom traditions report that it is the natural dimension of consciousness, this kind of awake awareness, is the fundamentally available to each of us and it is actually as each of us, is discovered not to even be a state that we’re experiencing as if, “Oh, I’m this small thought-based self that’s having this experience of peace of mind.” The discovery that’s amazing is, “Oh. I’m this peace of mind to which sometimes, this contracted states appear,” and that’s the big shift is to use that hypothesis that, what if it were that this is essentially my natural state and these other conditions are altered states? Where I walk around in an altered state and we can learn to kind of dehypnotize from the trance of the ego.
How You Can Access More Of Yourself And Relax Your Mind
Kamala Chambers
There are so many things in our daily lives and this culture that are driving us away from really being in our bodies, being mindful, and being aware of what’s happening moment by moment. Like sitting in front of a computer or the different overstimulation of the senses make us numb out.
I find that taking time to slow down, step away, breathe deeply to relax your mind, and notice what’s happening within my own body and within my own environment, tap me back into those moments of awareness, what’s actually happening right now in this moment.
Now, that’s one perspective. That’s one way that has worked for me and for many people that I worked with within the past.
I’d love to hear what are some ways that you encourage people to access more of themselves and more of the moment?
Loch Kelly
Those are traditionally and initially often, the best ways is to slow down to relax your mind, simplify, quiet, calm, focus, retreat, step away from movement in order to not be as caught up.
However, the interesting thing is that even then, you can really only get to a peaceful ego if you’re working from the kind of effortful attempt to quiet and calm and find this dimension of consciousness.
The reason I think most people don’t find this peace of mind is that thought can’t find it. The effortful personality that’s looking for it can’t remain as it is and get there.
Our will can’t make it happen that it requires literally a different kind of awareness to relax your mind and body.
That’s not attention. That’s not mental focus. That’s not concentration. That’s not even just the initial stopping or being aware of the moment. It almost require as if we’re living in a small storm cloud of our thoughts and emotions to relax your mind and body.
We literally have to unhook awareness from thinking and either drop down below or step out to the side or go above or pull back all the way out of our thoughts into this big sky awareness and then, in finding a way that to do that, it’s almost like merging with this peace of mind.
At first, it seems like, “Oh, I’m aware of this spacious awareness,” and then, the curious question could arise, or “Is it that I am this spacious awareness that’s aware of itself and aware of thoughts, feelings, and sensations within me?” That kind of shift of a different kind of direction of looking and the way you’re organizing yourself is kind of what the word, “surrender” or “let go” or “turn over” or “discovering something beyond just trying to clean up the cloud of your mind” or “calm it down.”
It literally takes stepping out or dis-identifying. That’s a very particular movement of consciousness to relax your mind.
Luis Congdon
One of the things you’re really making me think about right now is my experience when I lived in a yogic ashram and prior to going into the ashram, I had some very beautiful meditation experiences that weren’t trained. I had no idea that there was a possibility that I could feel so happy or so at peace and then, I went into the yogic lifestyle and into the ashram because I was searching for a way to maintain and hold that state.
I was searching for some kind of practice or way of being an orthodox essentially to fall into and, I struggled. I really struggled following the yogic lifestyle and I found that the more that I went into the regimens and the belief systems, the more that I actually struggled to feel at peace.
I had the sense of like if I wake up at 5am every morning, and I meditate for 1 hour, and I do yoga exactly the way that they tell me, and I breathe the exact way that they tell me, and I eat the way that they tell me. Then, I’ll finally feel at peace and it will be all worth it.
Then, I actually started to feel like I was almost like torturing myself and actually cutting off some of my natural inclinations. I wanted to have a relationship. I wanted to explore life in different ways but I thought that by holding myself back that I would be happier.
Now, this isn’t to say that for everyone this was the experience. For some people, it is the perfect way for them to be but I found that regardless of who it’s for, what you’re talking about that really strikes for me anyways is that the more that I try to control and have this experience, the farther it felt for me.
Understanding Various Dimensions Of Consciousness To Relax Your Mind
Loch Kelly
Yes. Beautiful. I think that’s right.
I think your story is a very dramatic one and then there’s other subtler versions of that point to that it’s not about the effort and it’s particularly not about the efforter. So it’s not about the seeker. It’s almost that the first real movement is letting go not only of seeking but the seeker and stepping out of the doer that has been, with great intentions, trying to do it right, trying to be better and proving, trying to thrive and that knower and doer can do certain things and improve many levels of life through effort and discipline.
This particular dimension of consciousness that we’re talking about, it doesn’t help to relax your mind. It literally requires upgrading the knowing and the center of identity by letting go of the old ones to relax your mind, finding a way to not kill the ego, not fight it, and eventually, you don’t get rid of your personality.
You don’t become nobody on the level of your humanity. However, there is a way of stepping out of this small sense of self that is a looping pattern of thought that most people feel like it’s behind your eyes looking out and that location just keeps self-perpetuating almost as if there’s a little entity in there that’s trying to get free. It almost feels like it’s perpetually dissatisfied and so, when you drop out of that project of perpetually solving the problem of this little mini-me, you can discover what’s here that shifts the felt sense of identity.
In fact, just one simple increase since you asked upon how to do it, so with that premise that there’s this little felt sense of doer that’s trying to solve problems on the level of identity but because it’s made of thought, it can never get any satisfaction. If it just relaxes for a moment, whoever’s listening just look with your awareness, you can just ask yourself this simple question. What’s here now when there’s no problem to solve? So just understand the question and just let it go into you, into your mind.
Loch Kelly
So, what’s here now when there’s no problem to solve? When you don’t look up to thought and don’t go down to sleep, what’s aware, what’s absence, and what qualities of presence are naturally arising?
Kamala Chambers
Thank you so much for inviting that space and that spaciousness. That’s what it really is. It’s an invitation to create more space for yourself, for your heart, for your body to exist and to relax your mind.
Thriving Launchers, I know that we are people of action. We are people that want to solve problems, that want to create a lot in the world and so, to take away the problem solver, and it doesn’t have to be all day.
This is not about being lazy. It’s about creating more space in those moments even if it’s just 5 minutes. Wouldn’t you agree Loch? Just to take 5 minutes to ask that question?
Unhook Awareness From Thinking To Relax Your Mind
Loch Kelly
Yes.
Loch Kelly
What we’re doing is we’re letting go of the little separate sense of self, this false self or mini-me. When it doesn’t have a project, people describe that they drop into this spacious awareness and into their bodies. So you actually start to feel your body from within and then, you feel like you’ve dropped from head to heart and now, you’re in your heart mind. So there’s a new motivation and this is where people who are in the zone or in the flow who actually optimally work the best with the less stress live is in what I call “Open hearted awareness,” which is the highest functioning wisdom capacity that isn’t having the gas and the break on at the same time.
You’re really in the flow. You’re emotional intelligence is even available that helps you relax your mind. There’s a sense of non-fear, non-worry, non-shame and then, you can create and relate from here as well as anywhere.
Practical Ways to Relax Your Mind
Kamala Chambers
That’s the trick to relax your mind, isn’t it? To create more, to be able to work with ease, work with peace, to work as a holistic being rather than just operating from maybe our heads or the problem solver or these limited aspects of ourselves. This is so beautiful, the way that you’ve shared it.
Are there any tips or practical things that we can incorporate? I know you gave us that beautiful gift to that question but something else that we can incorporate into our daily lives to help practice and embody this more?
Loch Kelly
Certainly, people are welcome to constructed and reverse engineer a lot of these advanced practices from wisdom traditions and broke them down into contemporary step-by-step series of shifts, out of current consciousness into this open hearted flow.
People are welcome to go and listen to the audio of my meditations or read my book which describes it more.
Another one is just a simple shift that helps to relax your mind would be literally to see whether your awareness, which tends to be hooked up to thoughts behind your eyes, what would it be like if you just do the simple shift from head to heart?
Even not knowing how to relax your mind or what it might be like to do it, just unhook awareness from thinking and have the awareness know directly your breath from your nostril. Then, have your awareness drop and know your jaw directly from within your jaw and your smile and then, have your awareness drop and know your throat directly from within your throat and then have this awareness, which is the location of knowing.
Continue to drop below your neck into your heart space, into your upper body and just feel as if you shifted down. So now, you’re actually knowing and feeling from this open hearted spacious to relax your mind, embodied, soft, and wise place where you have the potential to know if you needed to know information, you could but you could also just remain at home in your heart and have information from the office in your head come to you by Wi-Fi.
So you just rest and from here, you’re able to respond.
Words Of Wisdom To Relax Your Mind
Luis Congdon
This is a really beautiful practice that you’re talking about and it’s so simple.
One of the things that I really enjoy saying and thinking about is simplicity is a sign of mastery. It’s not complicated. It’s simple and yet, it’s one of the best ways to master, to be in the state or in the space that we’re talking about that is very peaceful and blissful.
One of the things too that I want to mention for all of you listening is that they’ve actually done studies on people taking their attention from their thoughts and taking their attention over to their heart and into their breathing.
What they’ve done over at the HeartMath Institute, and they do a lot of research on things like this is that they found that your brain is operating at certain megahertz. Your heart is operating at a different kind of wave and what happens is actually your brain waves will actually slow down and match that of the heart. It relaxes the whole nervous system and the whole body and it slows down and what we know is that a relaxed state is actually the most powerful state.
Bringing this into martial arts, I know as a wrestler and martial artist, the more that I can be relaxed during competition the better that I will be at responding and having access to quickly respond or react or respond. However, that comes from actually slowing down and focusing on the breath more and there’s a certain kind of space that you need to enter. It’s a very beautiful state in all physical practices to relax your mind.
They talk about this from yoga to sword fighting. This is a very beautiful practice to do so that we can have a better response to life. I just want to thank you for the practice, for the exercises, for the conversation.
Loch Kelly, it’s been a real pleasure to have you here on the Thriving Launch show. Thank you so much.
Kamala Chambers
Loch, before we go, is there any last words of wisdom that you want to leave the Thriving Launchers with?
Loch Kelly
My feeling is that people can awaken and live from an open hearted awareness dimension of consciousness in the middle of an active life.
Loch Kelly
More people will be able to access this intentionally and be able to grow and develop and support each other in this very restful but active way of being in the world with each other.
Kamala Chambers
Thank so much for giving us more resources to do just that.
All right everyone. Keep being successful, breathing deep, and feeling good in your body.
