What's up, Monkey Mind: Let your inner demons run riot and free yourself from their claws

As I sit down to write, a multitude of distractions present themselves – tidy the bookshelf, set the desk in order, make another cup of tea, sweep the floor, or the most telling trick of the restless mind, select a book, put it down, pick another, flick, search, read, repeat. Anything to delay the moment of getting down to it, which even though I am driven to do, I am equally avoidant of.

With the latter example of opening one of the many books that surround me at all times, these can be a bolster or a barricade, a support system or a stack of stumbling blocks, all of which I put in my own way.

While it’s frequently true that reading acts as a springboard, a place from which to leap back into my own thought stream, it can also be a cunning technique of subconscious self-sabotage.

Any of this sound familiar? The scrambling energy in the mind space? The devilish internal chatter that torments and tempts you away from the thing you came for? The procrastination that veils doubt and fear?

This is the nature of our mind, the untamed wild beast that lurks within. Until, that is, we see it, name it, befriend it, tame it, turn it on-side rather than have it derail us from the sidelines.

You might be familiar with it as your inner critic, the internalised harsh voice, the scared and defensive child, the voice of doom, whispering shitty nothings that hold you back, weigh you down and make you veer off your intended course.

Like any unruly character that doesn’t get the attention it wants, the Monkey Mind – so-called because the historic Buddha likened this thinking mind to a monkey that jumps from branch to branch, from thought to thought, from idea to idea, chattering and prancing erratically – will keep up its onslaught if left unchecked.

But it doesn’t have to continue this way.