What is a healthy mind? A healthy mind is rational, inhibitory, reflective and logical. It copes effectively with stress, overrides boredom, frustration and despair and achieves that elusive quality we call ‘happiness’. It keeps our distressing or inappropriate thoughts,feelings and emotions in check.

What are the characteristics of a healthy mind? It emotes appropriately and does not make a mess of the feelings being experienced in the now; It thinks, feels and acts positively in psychologically challenging situations. It holds back from expressing the immediate, extreme emotion, just long enough to let the mind ‘cool down’ to regain its composure. In a composed state of mind, “acknowledgment, understanding and letting go of that which has been” is more likely to be achieved.

If you are holding on to a bad feeling, ask yourself "Why am I holding on to it? What is causing it? How is this feeling affecting me physically, mentally and emotionally? What can I do about it?"

To view a feeling and recognise it for what it is, requires a high level of self-awareness. There is nothing so invaluable as being aware. Some of us arrive at this goal through endless practise of Breath-awareness, Breath-control, Self-control, Self-reflection and self-recognition which are all core components of self-awareness.

Self-awareness is the ability to tune into your own thoughts and feelings. Knowing what I am actually feeling and why I am feeling it, is very important for decision making. Best practice at this very moment is to feel your breath entering nostrils and leaving the nostrils with an unbroken awareness.

The main message here is about applying the 3A's to your fellings. Awareness, Attention and Action. Awareness by itself is only a third of the picture. Another third of the picture comes from giving your complete attention to what is, and finally, the last third of the picture is performing the action with the wisdom in your mind. But neither is sufficient alone.

Managing your feeling is not something you do once and then forget. Rather, in my life as in yours, managing a feeling is an ongoing, never ending, sometimes joyful and sometimes frustrating challenge. This underscores the vital importance of deeply internalising the principles of Awareness, Attention and Action, making them part of your everyday approach to your feelings, your stress, other people and daily activities.

It is important to note: The cause of your feeling lies within you and not outside of you, although often stimulated by an implicit response due to an outside / or an inside influence'. Implicit response is the body's involuntary reaction to stimulus. It is absolutely essential to develop conscious-awareness of the stimulus and taking conscious-control of the mental / emotional reaction.

All affect is interior. Any emotional impact I experience is inside me. If you hurt my feelings, it is an inner matter for me. If you can hurt my feelings, they are better off hurt, because it is an error in me.

When I am psychologically upset, hurt and or angry; I naturally stop and breathe in and breathe out with focused awareness until I can feel calm and composed. Only a composed mind can help me to reflect deeply about why I am hurt. Being upset or being hurt is my inner matter and no one else’s and therefore It becomes my Inner duty to give my undivided attention to my feeling; that’s all I can do and should do to release myself compassionately from the feeling of being psychologically hurt.

There is a great deal to learn from the sage Confucius who taught: “If an archer misses the target, he finds no fault with the target, nor with the bow, nor with the arrow, but with himself alone”. So, you too can act in this manner, locating the root cause of your feeling or failure in your own self. Once you know the actual cause the effect ends. Not knowing the cause, effect continues to affect you mentally and or emotionally.

As and when a thought pops up in your mind causing you to be worried or anxious, do not act on it immediately. Remind yourself that there is no need to worry because ‘thoughts can be thoughts but I don’t have to think them’, Instead be self-reflective; view it dispassionately to enable you to release the thought from your mind.

Don't live with a disturbing thought or a disturbing feeling (Thought creates feeling. No thoughts, no feelings). A process of releasing a thought or releasing a feeling is to; Stop, breathe, reflect and take a positive action to free your mind now from the disturbing thought and immediately experience a stress-free and peaceful state of mind.

"Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it's now or never". Allen Bennett

"The unaware life is not worth living". Socrates