What is The Mind Monkey?
Mind Monkey is the term used by Buddhists to refer to an out of control, unfocussed mind and the source of the constant negative chatter you hear in your head. The term was popularised by Dr Steve Peters, a Sports Psychiatrist who worked with the British cycling team during the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. He has written two books, The Chimp Paradox and the Path Through The Jungle.
Mind Monkeys are the inner voice or thoughts that can distract us from our goals and objectives. They’re the negative or self-limiting thoughts that often arise when we’re trying to change our habits and create a happy and healthier lifestyle.
Mind Monkeys can take many forms, including self-doubt, criticism, worry, lack of confidence and self-esteem.
Our minds are like jungles, filled with different types of animals (thoughts and emotions). Just like a real monkey, these thoughts and emotions are unpredictable and very disruptive. They can cause us to lose focus, make mistakes and ultimately give up on our health goals.
There’s a few breeds of Mind Monkey:
- The Worry Monkey. This type of monkey worries about what might happen in the future, it can cause you to feel anxious, stress and these leads to a lack of self-belief and confidence that you can create healthy habits and have a happy and healthy lifestyle without going crazy.
- The Critic Monkey. This monkey constantly criticises us, telling us we’re not good enough, it keeps bringing up our past failures and tells us we can’t change. This causes us to lack confidence and have low self-esteem and, again doubt our capacity to change.
- The Distraction Monkey. This monkey is always looking for distractions, such as social media, emails etc – just to stop you doing what you need to do to create a healthy lifestyle.
- The Comparison Monkey. We know that comparison is the thief of joy, by comparing ourselves to others makes us feel inferior or inadequate and its these feelings which stop us from living our best lives.
Training your Mind Monkey to be a Kind Monkey
- Visualise your mind as a jungle and your monkey is running around, either looking for food or running from a tiger. Recognise that she is hungry and scared, but she doesn’t have to worry, there is lots of food and she is safe and the tiger (work or financial stress, unhappy relationships, horrible bosses) they can be dealt with if we make the right decisions.
- Challenge your Mind Monkey, don’t believe what she is telling you. You’re in charge, take a moment to ask yourself if the thoughts you’re having will lead to kind or harmful actions. Positive thinking calms your Mind Monkey.
- Mind Monkeys love mindful moments, it’s just you and her, taking some time to observe your thoughts, feelings and the subsequent actions (good or bad) without judgement but understanding them with kindness?
- By staying focussed, avoiding getting caught up in negative or self-limiting thoughts and being proactive and positive you open your jungle and allow the light to shine in and you will feel calmer and see things more clearly.
- Goals, priorities and plans help you stay focussed. You don’t get in your car without knowing how to get to your destination. Your health and wellbeing is a journey and you need goals, priorities and plans to get you there, hopefully by the most efficient and scenic route.
Mind Monkeys are a significant barrier in achieving your health and wellbeing goals, mostly based on the fact that you’ve probably tried and failed many many times before and you lack the confidence and self belief to start afresh. Mind Monkeys have got really long memories, but is up to you to say this is a new chapter in my life and it’s called “Forget the Past. Focus on the Future”.
It’s really useful to visualise your mind as a jungle and there being several breeds of monkey in your head, but once they are trained you can train your Worry Monkey into a Positive Monkey, Critical Monkey into a Kind Monkey, Distracted Monkey into a Focussed Monkey As for comparison you can say “I don’t give a monkeys what everybody else is doing, I’m focussing on my own stuff”.
It’s really useful to visualise your mind as a jungle and there being several breeds of monkey in your head, but once they are trained you can train your…
Worry Monkey
into
A Positive Monkey
Critical Monkey
into
A Kind Monkey
Distracted Monkey
into
A Focussed Monkey
As for comparison you can say:
“I don’t give a monkeys what everybody else is doing, I’m focussing on my own stuff”.
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