You are not your mind

"You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be." -- Marianne Williamson

If there’s one thing I've learned in the last few years to become mentally stronger, it would be: “you are not your mind.”[ The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle] My whole life, I struggled with mental illness, thinking I was a victim of my mind until I realized this was all an illusion. I realized that by changing my thoughts alone, I could change my mind and break free from my mental illness.

A FOREIGN MIND

When you have a mental illness, it can confuse your mind. You will end up in a state where you don’t know and trust your mind anymore. It feels foreign. One day it makes sense; the next day, it doesn’t. You feel like the old you is gone, and someone else has taken over your mind and body. You feel out of control and often have no other way of accepting your current situation, leading you into a deeper rabbit hole.

You see yourself falling into the endless circle of mixed emotions, confusion, different therapies, different medications, and different outcomes. You may reach a point where you feel that nothing matters anymore. You want to get out, but your mind makes you think that that’s no longer an option. [why do we hold on to trauma]

BECOMING MENTALLY STRONGER After having struggled for fifteen years with mental illness and searching for help in all different places, I realized that the main focus of healthcare professionals was always just talking. Talking about my feelings, talking about situations, talking about life, etc. But nobody ever thought about "making my mind stronger." So even when I felt my problems were getting addressed, my mind was still in the same unhealthy state. I realized that the focus should be my thoughts.

The mind is a powerful tool. If we misuse it, it can become very destructive. We think we use our minds, but often we don’t use them at all. When you are mentally unhealthy, you start to believe that you ‘are’ your mind. This is an illusion but often not realized.

Most thoughts we have are automatically generated from the unconscious mind. We act on those thoughts throughout the day without even realizing it. With these thoughts come emotions, and we react to those unconsciously too. Usually, these thoughts and feelings are based on past events.

But the good news; is that you can train your mind, body, thoughts, and behavior. You can change your life by thought alone.

CONCLUSION

By thought alone, you can change your mind and break away from your mental illness. Changing your thoughts needs to become a daily activity to become mentally stronger. You will need to start analyzing your thoughts and, more so, changing your thoughts around. This doesn’t happen overnight, but practice makes perfect. Believe me!

Whenever you realize that you fall back into your same thinking patron, you must try to force your mind to snap out of it. You can use different techniques to do so [ how to snap out of obsessive thoughts ] Once you start to see and feel that things are changing just by your thoughts alone, you will make sure never to go back to your old mind.