Today I feel as though the monkeys have taken over the zoo and are out of control. I pray that “This Too Shall Pass”. It is Hell on earth.

Taming the monkey mind is a lot harder than one would imagine it to be, especially for me. I’ve practiced meditating and it doesn’t do anything for me. By the way, how was your weekend Therese? I have not read anything about it

I feel at times as if the monkey in my mind is Curious George himself, and he can’t help but jump around and swing by his tail to celebrate yet another escape from his zookeeper! He uses my mind as a trampoline and does all kinds of acrobatics while in the air. Sometimes it helps if I simply allow him a (limited, certainly) amount of freedom to be a monkey; at other times it is paramount that I get him back to his cage as quickly as possible because he insists on exploring corners of my mind that I have deliberately and for my own well being closed and locked. (We ALL have some of those nooks and crannies which are best left unexplored.) Either way, i’ve found that writing about my thoughts as the bounce off each other is a useful tool, without thinking or judging myself as they flash past my consciousness. It’s amazing, often I find myself writing down things I didn’t really even know were in there! And seeing them written down in such a slap-hazzard manner tends to minimize their power over me; they begin to seem like what they are: random emotions or rememberances that are powerless to sustain life on their own; like parasites, they must live off of someone else’s ego (or is it id? I get confused.) If I do decide to read the thoughts over at a later time, I can prepare myself beforehand by affirming that these came from the monkey’s ransacking and are not necessarily proof of the present state of my emotions.
My now-grown son, as many of his age, absolutely loved good old George as a child, but if you’ve read any of the books then you know that he always ended up causing trouble for someone when he broke out. I don’t have to allow him to do that to me; it’s MY mind and heart, and he’s no more than a prowler who seeks to vandalize my progress on myself! The graffitti he leaves behind isn’t necessarrily truth any more than the vandalism of graffiti on our urban buildings states anything more tan one individual’s views. Elinor Roosevelt is credited as saying that no one can hurt your feelings without your cooperation, a profound enough observation that it makes me wonder if that marvelous First Lady might not have been one of us! When that monkey decides to open doors and let thse critical thoughts I had quarantined back out to ireinfect the positive input that I’ve sought to use for reprogramming, I tell myself that I WON’T cooperate this time! As a child I had too little self-awareness to reject them; whether I embrace or reject them now that I’ve reached adulthood IS my choice! Granted, it’s never easy, even after years of therapy, but it can be done, and i’m determined to be the girl who does it rather than the little child who huddled on the porch steps listening to my father tell my mother how useless I was. Obviously, there are moments when that inner child resurfaces; she lives inside me, after all. But now that my father is dead and buried, I don’t have to assume his role and become my own tormentor! Sometimes I even dare, if I’m alone, to tell him out loud to get out of my head because he doesn’t own it any longer. I feel foolish, but also empowered. Then I’ll look myself in the eye in a mirror and carefully refute the nagatives by stating an appropriate positive(also out loud) several times i.e. “I am an intelligent woman; a stupid person couldn’t have accomplished what I have in life! or There are many things about me that ARE lovable and deserve to be nurtured.” It doesn’t always work, but i’ve yet to discover a method that does!

My form of meditation is when I sometimes attend weekday Mass. It takes my mind off myself and I focus on the Liturgy of the Word and Eucharist, and am united in body and spirit with the whole Church. It just feels right for me.
By the way, if you are Catholic (or not), grew up with nuns for teachers (or not), andwant to read a great little book with some practical words of wisdom (some of which blew me away coming from a nun) try “Mother Angelica’s Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality” by Raymond Arroyo. I have also read her biography by him, and she is some sweet Italian lady with a tell it like it is manner. It seems that her suffering has been mostly physical and she has her own way of handling it. Not sure how she feels about depression, but it certainly added to my faith bank.
Thanks, Therese, for letting us share in our own way.

Sometimes the monkey is just rattling his little tin cup and is easy enough to ignore. Other times he’s climbing the Empire State building. I am still my own worst critic but the little voice in my head is my mother. She is one those gifted individuals who seem to find the worm in every apple. I’m gonna take a wild guess and say she gifted me me with her OCD tendencies and depression. If I can still that voice before I don a housedress, grey wig, and start stabbing people in the shower, I’ll be doing really well! Thank God my Dad has two oars in the water most of the time. Me,…I end up going in circles a lot, gee I don’t know?

Margaret, I can relate so often to you. Thanks for posting.

One important thing for me in quieting the zoo called my mind is avoid any mood-altering drugs: cafeine, nicotine, pot and booze. They seem to take control of the mind and eventually increases the zoo within!

here are a few techniques I’ve used if the thoughts are flying around my mind like mad:
imagine the thoughts as bits of confetti floating down
imagine the thoughts as items on a news ticker- don’t judge them or ponder them, just see them fly by.