Witness my own journey from psychosomatic health issues to a tranquil life in the countryside, and discover how such transformations are not just personal triumphs, but lessons for us all. This episode ventures into the entwined nature of mental health and spiritual practice, revealing how a profound understanding of our inner selves is pivotal for navigating life's challenges.
Embark with me as we uncover the power of distinguishing our true selves from the onslaught of thoughts and patterns that can cloud our minds and hinder our well-being. Through the lens of esoteric philosophy, I offer guidance on cultivating a robust state of mental health to support your spiritual and emotional journeys. Join us for an enlightening conversation that promises to elevate your perception of the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Witness my own journey from psychosomatic health issues to a tranquil life in the countryside, and discover how such transformations are not just personal triumphs, but lessons for us all. This episode ventures into the entwined nature of mental health and spiritual practice, revealing how a profound understanding of our inner selves is pivotal for navigating life's challenges.
Embark with me as we uncover the power of distinguishing our true selves from the onslaught of thoughts and patterns that can cloud our minds and hinder our well-being. Through the lens of esoteric philosophy, I offer guidance on cultivating a robust state of mental health to support your spiritual and emotional journeys. Join us for an enlightening conversation that promises to elevate your perception of the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Welcome. My name is Penny Frampton and I am the host of the podcast A Little Light on the Path. A Little Light on the Path is a series of talks about esoteric philosophy from a practical and experiential perspective. I will be presenting intellectual concepts, but from the point of view of how they impact our lives and our spiritual journey, how those ideas work out through an ordinary life. In other words, how to live an ordinary life in an extraordinary way.
Speaker 1:
My previous podcasts have been about the importance of basic spiritual practices. There was a saying man know thyself, which was one of several sayings carved over the entrance to the temple of Apollo in ancient Delphi, which was the site of the sacred oracle. It is so very important, before undertaking any real powerful spiritual practices like meditation or yoga, to get to know yourself. The last couple of podcasts I have talked about physical and emotional health, and so now I'm going to talk about basic mental health and why this is so important upon a spiritual path, not only in an ordinary life. Mental health has come to the forefront of everyone's attention around the world these days. Recently, the connection between mental health and how it affects the physical body has also been recognised. A lot of what is termed mental health these days is actually emotional health, but I'm going to talk today about thoughts, thought patterns and the impact of the mind. How do our thoughts affect us, how they affect our fundamental health, and that can impact our spiritual growth. There comes a point in every spiritual path where, due to the sensitivity we gain mentally and emotionally through spiritual practice or simply through the beginning of a connection with our soul consciousness, that we can experience a level of mental and emotional illness or, without being aware of it, a physical illness caused by emotional or mental processes.
Speaker 1:
And I am no exception. Some eight years ago, I was going through a very challenging time in my life and developed physical difficulties which included the loss of feeling in my legs, which included the loss of feeling in my legs. I was unaware at the time. Those were caused by emotional and mental issues. After a full year of medical examination and tests, it was found there was nothing physically wrong with me and luckily I had a consultant that was aware of psychosomatic effects upon the body and suggested I look at psychological reasons for my illness. I was subsequently diagnosed with CTPSD extreme anxiety, suicidal depression and dissociative disorder so I applied for counselling. However, there was, at that time, an 11-month waiting list. So I packed up my life and left everything that was causing my anxiety, bought a caravan and went to live in the middle of the countryside, where it took me a couple of years to heal myself. But my story is not an unusual one.
Speaker 1:
When it comes to people on a spiritual path, there will always come a time when your sensitivity and awareness will have the potential to cause mental, emotional and physical dis-ease. So what are we to do? How can we develop, maintain and improve our mental health? Well, we use the same process I talked about in my last podcast on emotional health. We start off by recognising that we are not our thoughts. What do I mean by this? When we are on a spiritual path, we become aware there are two aspects to a human being. We become aware there are two aspects to a human being the personality, made up of the physical form, the emotions, the mind, behaviours, etc. And then there is the aspect of which we become more steadily aware beyond the personality, which I call soul consciousness. So, at the level of our true essential nature, we are not our thoughts, just as we are not our emotions. From the point of soul consciousness, beyond the mind. We can watch our thoughts as they arise without associating with them, and this is the beginning of establishing mental health. This takes practice, just as with emotional health. It takes consistent practice. Most people go about their daily lives unaware of their thoughts. Most people's minds ramble incoherently in a disconnected stream of thoughts, one after the other, with no coherence. It's actually quite fun to take a pen and paper and just write whatever pops into your head for maybe three minutes. You'll be amazed at the rubbish.
Speaker 1:
The process towards mental health is the same as that for emotional health. The first step is to become aware of your thoughts. If they are not helpful, not positive and not coming from love, then don't indulge them. Acknowledge them, be aware of them, simply sit with them. You will start to discover links to emotions, memories, beliefs and imagination. Just simply observe with a developing detachment. Once you are aware of your thoughts and you have discerned those that are not productive, useful or positive, how do we change them?
Speaker 1:
With many mental illness, we have repetitive negative thought patterns that just keep repeating themselves over and over. How do we break the cycle? It's actually a very simple practice when you are aware of a repetitive negative thought or sentence perhaps, whatever it might be. It might perhaps be I am a failure, just change it. It does take practice again to catch it every time, and you can use affirmations that are the opposite to the repetitive thoughts. For example, if you're thinking I am a failure, perhaps change it to I am enough. Perhaps change it to I am enough.
Speaker 1:
There is a concept that suggests that thought patterns actually create nervous pathways in the brain linked to chemical responses which trigger emotions and physical responses. It's a bit like walking in a field of long grass If you keep walking the same path, that will become a permanent pathway. In a similar way, in order to create a new pathway through that field of grass, you have to turn off that first path consistently and with another direction until a new pathway is formed and the old returns to long grass behind you. It takes constant awareness and sustained effort. Some of these pathways have been created many years ago, perhaps even in early childhood, and it's also been suggested that it takes a month of persistent effort to forge a new pathway, as in many cases for me in the past during intense mental disability, when negative thought patterns feel too intense to control, simply disrupt them with sounding a simple note and sound. I used to use ohm repeatedly, but it can be any sound. I used to use ohm repeatedly, but it can be any sound. Just use it to disrupt the mental pattern for a time and then you can start changing the mental pattern to some other thought.
Speaker 1:
So let's talk now about another aspect of the mind, one which separates humanity from the animal kingdom the imagination. We use the mind to imagine all sorts of things that don't exist, never happened or, for all we know, will never happen in the future. How many times, when you are going into a situation where you might be nervous, like going for an interview or perhaps going to the dentist, does your mind run around rehearsing potential future scenarios, potential future scenarios. These can have a direct impact on our mental health and potentially on our physical health as well, by the release of chemicals in the body, such as adrenaline. These thought patterns are total illusion. So what's the solution here? Well, if you find yourself indulging in this way, take control of the imagination. For instance, if you are having a nightmare, whether during sleep or even when you're awake, take control and change the ending it. It's great fun. If you're dreading the dentist, imagine lying on a sun lounger on some exotic location. Don't simply allow the negative illusion to run until its end and control you remember? Remember the scene in Harry Potter learning to change the Bogart in the cupboard into something funny? That's the impact here. Change the scenario, Change the imagination, have fun.
Speaker 1:
Another pattern we indulge in is in imagining conversations with other people, whether a projection of the future or rerunning a past event. If these are negative, once again they affect us emotionally and even physically by cultivating anxiety or even dread of the situation. So once again, play with it and change what the other person is going to say and it will completely change the way you think and feel and therefore act again. This might start out as being a challenge, but again, with consistent practice, it becomes easier and even great fun. There's another interesting process to practice, which is an NLP technique, and for those unaware of what NLP stands for, it means neuro linguistic programming and essentially it's a wonderful toolbox of useful techniques and processes used primarily for counseling.
Speaker 1:
So let's take the situation where you are hearing negative voices going around in your head or imagination, perhaps Culminating in your actions or behaviours that are not useful to you, perhaps commentating on the things that you are doing or thinking. Even NLP plays with what we call modalities to change the experience and regain control. What are modalities? Well, if we take the example of the negative voice, you can start asking yourself questions like is it my voice? If not, who does it belong to? You might discover it belongs to a significant other from the past or even in the present a parent, a sibling, peer, friend, somebody at work. Ask from which direction this voice is coming from. I once had the disapproving voice of my mother, always talking over my left shoulder. Ask how loud is the voice, etc. Now play with those modalities and have some fun with them. What happens if you turn the volume down? What happens if you move the source of the voice around or further away from you, so it's so far that you can't actually hear it? What happens if you substitute another voice for a supportive voice? Do they say something completely different? Have fun, play around with it.
Speaker 1:
It is important to understand these simple basic spiritual practices before undertaking more powerful spiritual practices, the reason being that running powerful energies through your mental body, directed by your mind, will only increase and exacerbate the underlying patterns and make them worse. Work on your basic spiritual health first, so you have a clear, steady foundation to build upon and to work from in the future. Human beings have this really powerful tool called the mind and the imagination, and it depends upon how you use it. Depends upon how you use it. It's up to us to choose whether we indulge the negative patterns or choose to create positive ones. If you find yourself fearful of events playing out in the world today and you indulge your negative thoughts on the subject, you are, in fact, a part of the problem. Use that powerful tool we have been given and imagine a different, positive outcome for humanity. This is part of our spiritual purpose. Sports coaches use it all the time, and so do business entrepreneurs and salesmen Use it all the time, and so do business entrepreneurs and salesmen. Isn't it about time the spiritual community used the same powerful tools to change the world?
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to A Little Light on the Path and thank you to all my subscribers. Your monthly donations are what allow me to continue to produce future podcasts for you all. I can also be found on the Wisdom app most Saturdays and every Sunday at 7pm GMT, where you can guest on my talks and talk directly with me. Otherwise, I can be found on Facebook under A Little Light on the Path, and also through my website, wwwalittlelightonthepathcom. So take care out there and a lot of love to you all. Signing off for now.
