I was in the midst of watching my mind recently during a meditation. On this particular day, it was filled with an age-old, negative and scary storyline. As I watched what was being played out, I heard a profound question being posed to me: Do you know what you answer to?

And then, on the heels of that question I heard, Remember what you answer to. 

As you can imagine, this question and the statement of pure guidance that followed, pulled me out of the thought loop I had been caught in; sending me into a place of contemplation around what this all meant for me. How framing the thoughts I was having, through the lens of being aware of what I most want to answer to, feels immediate and profoundly life-changing. A direct way into choosing what it is I will give my attention to. A strong question and statement to help me remember some things I never want to forget.

A kind of True North in a world always pulling us away from what it is we most want to line up with when it comes to how we are choosing to live. When it comes to what we answer to, as demonstrated by what we believe in and act on.

In truth, harboring negative, unreal and untrue thoughts can only leave me forgetting what it is I answer to. Can only leave me answering to all the wrong things. Ever. Like other people’s opinions. Scary and inflated news headlines. Past conditioning. Destructive agendas. Old hurts. Stories passed down the line that were never mine to begin with.

It’s so easy to believe you are your thoughts. So easy to stay with what you have been given. So easy to fall into herd mentality. And so very, very much harder to fight it. To refuse to pick up what is not yours. To reject what it is that hurts you just by thinking about it.

This is not easy to do. There is so much momentum behind thinking the very thoughts that get us answering to the wrong things. There is a social pull that drags us into believing certain things, going along with the crowd if you will, even when it is not good for us. Then there is all the information we are being fire hosed with that we are not challenging the validity of, that frightens us and gets us believing things that are not true. There is also our own survival system that clings to what we have always done as a safety feature, making it difficult to release the so-called “tried and true” ways.

And finally, there is the “benefit” of letting something or someone else decide what you answer to; a kind of abdication of personal responsibility for being the decider of what you will allow to go on in your own mind.

In the Yogic tradition, there is a practice known as Neti, Neti. It translates to Not this. Not that. A powerful orientation of rejecting what is false. A practice of the mind to sort through all of life’s experiences through the process of elimination. Running every thought and behavior through the grist mill of, Nope it’s not that. That’s not it. Whatever the”it” means to you.

“It” could mean being out of alignment with your values. Or maybe your spiritual beliefs. It could be the kind person you most want to be. Or how it is you want to talk to others. Using this practice helps you so that even when you are not exactly sure how to get to what you answer to, there certainly are things you know you do not want to answer to.

If you want to begin, you must have a way of noticing what you are thinking about, and therefore, answering to. Learn to catch yourself thinking whenever you can. And when you find yourself in a loop that does not feel like something you want to answer to, say to yourself, No, not this. This is not what I answer to.

What I answer to is…