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Tuesday, July 15, 2025
CEOWORLD magazine - Latest - CEO Lifestyle - Minding the Mind

CEO Lifestyle

Minding the Mind

Catherine Duncan

I regularly hear my clients say, “My mind is running me. I’m exhausted. I want to slow down.” Others say to me, “So this is life? I’ve mastered my job. I’m at the top, but I feel empty, depleted, burned out.

The reason many people feel depleted and burned out is because they’re living on autopilot. Their reality is grounded in their mind. They live in their mind, plugging along, not conscious of the preciousness of this moment, of breathing, and of being alive.

Maybe you notice that you can’t stop your endless thoughts and mind chatter. Maybe you start the day with thoughts on what it will include, such as appointments, errands, and visits, and you feel overwhelmed before you even get started. Your thoughts have energy, and when your mind is running your life, you’re often living in a stress response, with cortisol, a stress hormone, coursing through your body.

Our world acknowledges individuals who are brilliant, innovative, and highly intellectual. Most of us are conditioned to focus on and develop our minds, increase our intelligence, and see life through a mental framework. This mental framework is often devoid of an emotional, energetic, or spiritual lens. Living only in our minds keeps us from fully experiencing what it means to be alive, and open to the wonder of life.

Our minds might bring us success, achievement, and value in the world, but if we don’t feel the beauty of being alive, the vibration of life, the energy, love, and joy pulsing through us and around us, something is missing.

When we live in our thinking ego mind, we are at its mercy. Our mind is attached to form, identity, desires, and passions, and these attachments run who we are. We ruminate over the past or the future. We often embody judgment, separation, a feeling of less than, and we shut down, avoid, try to control, and try to not feel.

When our mind is running the show, we cannot experience a felt sense of spaciousness, stillness, or aliveness. We lose ourselves. Some people tell me they are so used to living in their mind that they can’t stop their endless thoughts and mind chatter for even just a few minutes in order to come into the present moment. When this happens, I suggest that maybe instead of fighting against their thoughts, they should try watching those thoughts.

Take a few moments now and step back and witness where your mind goes. When you do, you’re experiencing awareness, the state of having stepped back from your thinking mind in order to witness your thoughts and feelings. When you choose to watch what your mind is doing, you shift out of autopilot and come back to the present moment. Your mind slows down, and its grip on you loosens. You can feel the fullness of being alive. You can feel the beauty, joy, and peace that is within and around you. You can drop into silence and timelessness and open into deeper layers of consciousness. From there, you can start to run your life instead of letting your mind run you.

We live in a fast-paced world that is crowded with news, opinions, chaos, and upheaval. We are making a choice each day about how we live. And if we are not choosing to move out of our busy, chattering mind, we are subconsciously choosing a path of unawareness.

Here are two of my favorite practices to slow down our mind, bring us into the present moment and open into peace.

Witnessing Your Thoughts 

Sit in a comfortable position. Focus on your breath, breathing in and breathing out. Notice what is arising in your mind and body. Whatever is arising in this moment, just be with it.

Can you watch your mind, being the witnessing presence? Can you watch the thoughts come and then watch them go, as if they were just clouds drifting across the sky?

If your mind goes to a thought of the past or future, consciously come back to your breath. Focus just on breathing in and breathing out.

Let your body soften and relax, breathing in and breathing out.

You can spend as much time as you wish witnessing your thoughts and feelings as they arise and dissipate. If you are new to this, start with five minutes. When you’re ready to stop, bring your focus back to your breath, breathing in and breathing out.

Self-Soothing Practice 

Here is an exercise to come back into the present moment when you are

suffering or feeling unrest.

I invite you to close your eyes.

Place your hands over your heart area and breathe.

Let your body soften and relax. Feel your breath, breathing in and

breathing out.

Feel the warmth of your hands over your heart area.

Feel your heart soften.

Breathing in and out.

Notice what you are feeling.

Name the feeling.

Notice where you feel it in your body.

Continue breathing in and breathing out.

Now say a loving-kindness phrase, such as, “May I be at peace,” or, “Be

with me.”

Breathe in and breathe out.

Spend a few minutes or longer just breathing in and out.

And when you are ready, you can gently open your eyes.

Freedom arises when you understand that you are the master

of your mind.

The ultimate question is, are you the master of your mind, or is

your mind the master?

We can experience more peace, ease, and joy right now. It is a daily choice and practice how we are living each day. What are you choosing?  


Written by Catherine Duncan.
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CEOWORLD magazine - Latest - CEO Lifestyle - Minding the Mind

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Catherine Duncan
Catherine Duncan, MA, BCC is an Integrative Spiritual Consultant and author of Everyday Awakening. She has worked extensively in the areas of chronic illness, life transitions, grief, and loss. Catherine is an ordained minister, chaplain, spiritual director, and trained in a range of healing modalities. She served for many years as a hospice chaplain, and now owns her own practice, Learning To Live.


Catherine Duncan is an Executive Council member at the CEOWORLD magazine. You can follow her on LinkedIn, for more information, visit the author’s website CLICK HERE.