Most people are constantly ‘in thought’. Some of it is conscious, but most of it ‘mindless’ rather than ‘mindful’ – it lacks awareness. Although estimates vary, according to the Laboratory of Neuro Imaging at the University of Southern California, the average person has approximately 48.6 thoughts per minute – that’s a staggering 70,000 thoughts per day.18 If you’re depressed or anxious that number rises. Regular mindfulness practices, such as formal meditation but also simple breathing and mindfulness exercises where our focus is on a crystal, can help us to become more aware of our thoughts – we become the observer of our thoughts, rather than the thinker – and so less likely to be swept along in a tide of stressful and fearful thoughts. And as we come to focus more on the present moment, so the mind and body calms more easily.
Most thoughts are mindless or unconscious ‘background noise’. You might be worrying about your finances, eyeing up someone attractive or noticing how cloudy the sky is today and deciding whether an umbrella is needed. They are acts of the conscious mind but rarely intentional. A subconscious part of you is monitoring clamouring feelings, jangling sensations, niggling memories, valuable intuitions and unconscious habits, and making judgements about them. How safe you feel, or how anxious, can be the result of these thoughts or intuitions, which affect how you react to situations and to people. This is expressed through what you say: ‘He’s a pain in the neck’, ‘She’s coming on too strong’, and so on. Your body, too, often speaks your mind – and instantly reacts to other people’s body language. It is all ‘in thought’ – albeit mindlessly.
Brains are rather like computers. They run familiar programmes and are subject to glitches and freezes. Checks and balances in the brain block off wider awareness and push us along well-defined pathways. It has been suggested that we can process up to 40 billion bits of information per second and we are said to be aware of 2,000 bits19 – that’s a lot of comparing, judging and measuring. Learning to manage that process to some degree and shut off unnecessary mind chatter as far as possible is vital if you are to attune to a wider awareness. You then enter ‘empty mind’ space, which is perhaps better termed ‘receptive mind’ space. This is paradoxically both still and dynamic. It contains no preconceptions, no internal agenda, no compulsions or predictions. In this space you meet each moment as it arises and respond accordingly.
These pairs of keywords and phrases summarize the qualities of a mindless state and of a mindful one: inattentive/attentive; spaced-out/fully present; habitual/spontaneous; by rote/creative; confused/clear; routine/interactive; scattered/centred; time-led/timeless; constricted/free; opinionated/receptive. Which resonate with you?
Eye of the Storm (page 44), Smoky Quartz (page 50), Auralite 23 (page 52), Carnelian (page 60) and Amethyst (page 64); other crystals for the mind include Selenite (page 70), Lapis Lazuli and Fluorite.
Amethyst: the gateway to a calm, clear mind.