Our mind does not stop. Thoughts not only follow one after another but overlap, mix, interconnect, distort and sometimes trap us in states of restlessness, fear or hopelessness. And this feeling, much to our regret, can lead us to believe that our mind is a place full of threats, and not a safe haven, as the psychologist and mindfulness expert Belén Colomina proposes in ‘The healing power of silence ‘. The author invites in her work to train the mind with the practice of meditation and to discover in the silence of calm the door to transform suffering into well-being. Not in vain does he ensure that we all have the ability to acquire wisdom and ability in mental training to go through that pain, alleviate it and cultivate well-being. Let’s see with her how to achieve it…
Why does the title of your work emphasize the word ‘silence’?
The title reflects the essence of the book as it focuses on showing how we can have from inner silence an allied mind that provides benefits to heal, have well-being and continue to develop internally.
When the mind becomes a safe haven and it is aligned to that transformation we can see that our life is also transformed. What often happens is that instead of living in silence, we live in mental noise, in agitation, in dispersion… And all this becomes dysfunctional patterns such as anxiety, anguish, hopelessness, despair or fear.
We often associate silence only with what is outside of us, but not with what is inside…
We live surrounded by hyperstimulationin the era of hyperconnection and in the era of immediacy. These are three factors that we need to regulate and that we regulate with internal and external silence. You have to learn to reduce stimuli, excess information and excess connection.
It is about connecting with life in an integral way and not in a way fast, demanding or hyperproductive. That is why we need an internal journey that we can carry out through compassion and internal analysis. In this way I can see what patterns are put into operation in that contact with the outside. I can analyze if it is automatic and can become toxic or, on the contrary, if it is complete, full and conscious and that allows me to harmonize my parts: cognition, will and contact with the environment. If all this goes in harmony, I get a life to the full, but if there is excessive external or internal noise, I will live on autopilot, handling obstacles abruptly, without being aware that I can get out of difficulty without so much noise or difficulty. We normalize that, the noise and the difficulty and we think that life is like that, but it is not like that.
What can we do to order our thoughts and to appease that mental noise? Can you stop thinking?
Stop thinking is impossible because one of the functions of the mind is precisely think. What should be considered is not to merge with those thoughts, not to believe that our lives are those thoughts. Those thoughts can become negative, distressing, threatening, demanding… And I can believe them and that can make my life normalize that my real existence is like that.
The meditation It helps me gain perspective and distance from those thoughts in order to observe them without judgment and without reactivity. The goal is to become a person who, through reflection, can choose what he wants to do with each moment of her day. However, it is true that many times when the thought comes with great intensity I can come to believe that I am my thoughts. But no, we are not our thoughts.
And what can we do if we believe that we are what we think?
With meditation we train ourselves to see thoughts as mental events. Thus, I can see that mental event as a huge chain of thoughts. You have to be aware that we have an average of 70,000 thoughts a day. If I believe all this reactive chain of thoughts, in the end I make my life random and what my mind is creating. But I can redirect randomness from automatic to something voluntary so that I can focus my attention on what is constructive, positive, loving, kind… We can lead a more conscious life directed towards well-being and that requires consciousness y attention and that is precisely what we train in meditation.
If a person finds it difficult to find inner calm, where should they start looking for what calms and comforts us?
There is a first moment in which if the mind is very agitated and scattered, the mind rebels when trying to go towards calm. This is a normal process. When a person sits down to meditate, the first thing he says is that he can’t because he gets more nervous or agitated. That is normal. The mind is not used to being slowed down, nor is it used to being held in a stimulus concrete. But that’s not why you have to stop training. It is difficult for anyone, for example, to start running to prepare for a marathon. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. You have to train to achieve it. The same thing happens to the mind, if you take it to a dysfunctional habit of agitation and normalize it, you will live in a trained mind. If you want to live in a calm mind, you will have to gradually adjust the training to start holding attention on just one stimulus. We are used to changing stimuli quickly and holding each stimulus for a short time. But what happens is that thinking that we do more, we are doing less and with less quality.
It’s hard to meditate…
Of course it’s hard at first but it’s something you have to work on to make it a habit. The mind rebels because it is not used to holding on to a stimulus, but only if you train this ability will you be able to redirect attention where you want in a moment of stress, anxiety or anguish to calm down and find a safe place, a refuge within your mind. . But for that you need daily training.
We often see it as normal to train the body with effort, but when we meditate we think that it is something that has to come out on its own.
It is not like that, but because we have not been taught since childhood that in reality the mind is a instrument capable of many things, it is like a high-speed car. But the same thing happens with our mind as with that car, it is very capable, very powerful and very fast, but if you don’t know how to drive it well, it is dangerous. We have to learn to steer the mind and redirect it in a good direction. Sometimes we choose not to direct but every time we choose not to direct the mind, it is chance and life that will choose for you. You have to keep in mind that you can choose how to live each of the things that happen to you. And that doesn’t come out alone, that costs effort. Between surviving and living there is a difference, which is the effort and training. For some it is more difficult than for others but for all it is absolutely possible.
I think it is a lack of education because they have not taught us to do it, we have normalized that we have to live in suffering or that we are like that and that we cannot change. You can change a lot. You have a lot to develop in your mind, everything you want, but with an effort, of course.
In fact, his work explains that if we don’t take care of what we think, our mind can take us to dark and distressing places…
Our mind is powerful and is capable of creating all kinds of scenarios. And the longer I spend in the dysfunctional scenarios, in the afflictions, in the fear… the bigger and more catastrophic the problems will become. internal monsters. The more attention and credibility given to them, the greater the resonance in the body, mind and life. I can live in torment and grief, but I can also choose not to increase the spiral of suffering. I need to know that I can alleviate suffering and have the ability to generate the necessary skills to do so. But I have to choose how I think, how I feel and how I act. For that I have to train the mind through meditation.
Meditation is to familiarize the mind with virtuous, constructive and kind states, something that in turn leads us towards a state of well-being and harmony.
Is it possible to improve the abilities of the mind through meditation?
Meditation will take you to great benefits They are backed by science. The mind will even improve in its own architecture and in its own functioning. The results are more than evident. The bad news is that they are not fast nor are they for now, but are the result of continuous training. Therefore also when practicing meditation we have to be kind and self-compassionate. We have to accompany each other on this path in a kind and less demanding, destructive or suffering way, since the latter leads us to extremes of stress, anxiety, insomnia or bad eating habits.
We have normalized that this has to be the case instead of thinking that we can do things differently on a day that seems complicated to us. But this has to be trained to achieve it.
What benefits of meditation do you think are the least known?
One of the most important benefits is to feel that your life changes and becomes more harmonious, life is seen in a different way, that person becomes less negative or suffering and begins to see life with more resilient and constructive eyes. You begin to talk better to yourself, to treat yourself better, and to adopt a lifestyle that tends toward well-being in an organic, effortless way. Results in both physical and mental health are also appreciated as many people have found improvements in relation to blood pressure, insomnia, mood, stress or even mental rumination.
In the book ‘ The healing power of silence ‘ from the Grijalbo publishing house, the psychologist Belén Colomina accompanies the reader to discover the meditation from an intimate and subtle place, accompanying you to reveal your calm to transform your suffering into well-being.
You can learn more about the work of Belén Colomina in her website and on their social networks: @belencolomina and Instagram.