Mindset is a popular topic these days.
You've gotta have the right mindset in order to succeed.
You've gotta have a growth mindset.
An abundance mindset is where it's at!
"It's all up here" as people point to their heads.
While it's true that mindset - that is, the activity and content of your mind - is vastly important in your life, there's a more important truth that I'd like to share.
In order to live a life of unconditional well-being (which is the core exploration of this blog), freedom does not in fact lie in the mind. It lies in your relationship to your mind. Furthermore, it lies in you, the one who knows you even have a mind.
Growing up, my mind was rarely filled with empowering thoughts. Negativity ran rampant, resulting in constant feelings of dread, worry, sadness, anger, and boredom. Roughly 70% of the time, I experienced one or more of these emotions which stemmed from my poor attitudes and beliefs - that is, my mindset at the time.
I was so lost in negativity that I wasn't even aware I was lost. I just knew that I was miserable.
However, as I explain in my previous post about the mind, you are not your mind. To prove this to you, think about how often your mind changes. Think about how crazy those thoughts are in there. Do you think that's really you? You're aware of what's in your mind, but you're also equally aware of what's around you. When you look at the wall, are you the wall? No. When you look at your mind, it's the same thing. You're looking.
Ultimately, you are not what you look at. You are the seer, the conscious witness who is aware of your mind - the subject looking at the object. This is the only unchanging element of who you are. In fact, it is who you are.
So I've come to realize that my mind has, well, a mind of its own, and I don't need to get involved in its drama. Yes, creating an abundance mindset is important. If you want to bring more positivity into your mind, that's wonderful. I absolutely think we should all do that. But it's not the only thing we should do.
In the Western world, we think we always have to be doing, thinking, or saying something, but there's a whole realm of living that happens outside of the mind. While we're so busy doing, thinking, and saying, few of us are simply being.
In addition to mindset, we need to focus on our state of being.
Many moments in our lives - especially the day to day mundane activities - do not call for any thinking or speaking. They just call for our presence, our participation in whatever it is.
That's why true freedom and unconditional well-being is about more than just a good mindset. It's having the right relationship to our minds, and knowing who we are at our core. Oftentimes, it's about letting go of what's going on in our minds, and just being with whatever is in front of us.
Your mindset is important, but your state of being is everything.
Live with substance!
Gabe Orlowitz
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