What You Have Given Your Mind to Do

If you mistreat an animal, it becomes afraid. This is what has happened to your psyche. You have mistreated it by giving it a responsibility that is incomprehensible. Just stop for a moment and see what you have given your mind to do. You said to your mind, “I want everyone to like me. I don’t want anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be pleasing and acceptable to everyone. I don’t want anyone to hurt me. I don’t want anything to happen that I don’t like. And I want everything to happen that I do like.” Then you said, “Now mind, go figure out how to make everyone of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night." And of course your mind says, “I’m on the job. I will work on i constantly." [...]

By watching your mind, you will notice that it is engaged in the process of trying to make everything okay. Consciously remember that this is not what you want to do, and then gently disengage it. Do not fight it. Do not ever fight your mind. You will never win. It will either beat you now, or you will suppress it and it will come back and beat you later. Instead of fighting the mind, just don’t participate in it. When you see the mind telling you how to fix the world and everyone in it in order to suit yourself, just don’t listen.

The key is to be quiet. It’s not that your mind has to be quiet. You be quiet. You, the one inside watching the neurotic mind, just relax. You will then naturally fall behind the mind because you have always been there. You are not the thinking mind; you are aware of the thinking mind. [...]

Just keep doing this with all those little things that come up each day. It is a very private thing you do inside yourself. You will soon see that your mind is driving you crazy over nothing. If you don’t want to be like that, then stop putting energy into your psyche. That is all there is to it. If you follow this path, the only action you ever take is to relax and release. When you start to see this stuff going on inside, you just relax your shoulders, relax your heart and fall back behind it. Do not touch it. Do not get involved in it. And do not try to stop it. Simply be aware that you are seeing it. That’s how you get out. You just let it go.

--Michael Singer, from "The Untethered Soul"