Beyond the Prison of Mind: How We Shape Our Experience

Author: Naga Das

As vibration increases, attachment to materiality diminishes. This fundamental shift requires us to move our identity from the purely physical to the spiritual, recognizing that the physical world is not the ultimate reality. This isn't about rejecting material existence, it's about understanding its transitory nature and our power to transcend its limitations.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE

For most of us, our conscious experience is driven by the pains of our past and the anxieties of our future. We live trapped between yesterday's wounds and tomorrow's worries, missing the only moment where actual power resides: Now.

This perpetual oscillation between past and future creates a distorted reality. We mistake our mental constructs for truth, our fears for facts, our memories for present circumstances, choosing to live in self-imposed cells of our own making.

TRAPPED IN MY MIND

I’m in Ohio visiting my partner’s family for the holidays and surrounded by love. I have never seen a relationship as beautiful as the one between his parents. I look out the kitchen window, into the backyard, and think to myself, “What a beautiful, calm life. This is the kind of life I hope to give my children someday”.

All of a sudden, I feel a wave of anxiety wash over me. I’m scared. But what am I scared of? Commitment? Stability? Or am I afraid of failing? Failing my family, the way (I felt) mine had failed me. Failing myself, the way (I believed) I had failed myself in the past.

 I feel another wave wash over me, and this time I hear a voice inside my head say, “run”. I begin to feel myself run. Running away from my thoughts. Running away from my emotions. Running away from the kitchen into the bathroom where no one can see me. I stop and think to myself, “What am I even running from?”, The voice slowly creeps back in and rumbles with conviction, “Doesn’t matter. You’re a runner. You’ll always be a runner”. I start to believe the voice. If past trends are the measurement for future projections, then I’m bound to run away from life.

The unwelcome voice interjects to agree, “That’s right. You ran away from home. You ran away from a marriage. You ran away from any chance of having a family. What makes you think you won’t do it again?”. The voice gets louder and angrier, “You’ll never be able to commit. YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH! YOU’VE NEVER BEEN GOOD ENOUGH!! YOU’LL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH!!!”. Next thing I know I’m panicking, staring at my reflection in the upstairs bathroom mirror.

I leave the bathroom and go back into the bedroom. The room is quiet, but the inner noise smothers the outer silence.

The voice(s) begin to get louder and I think to myself, “Am I crazy?”.

Within minutes, I've gone from gratitude to panic, from presence to prison. The kitchen hasn't changed. The love surrounding me remains constant. But my internal frequency has shifted everything.

THE ILLUSION OF MENTAL REALITY

Things are only as real as we think they are. This isn't new-age wishful thinking; it's practical wisdom backed by neuroscience. Our brains don't distinguish between vividly imagined experiences and actual ones. When we replay past traumas or rehearse future disasters, our bodies respond as if these scenarios are happening now.

In that Ohio bathroom, staring at my reflection, I realized I wasn't living in reality at all. I was inhabiting a mental construction built from past patterns and projected fears. The anxiety wasn't responding to present circumstances, it was responding to a story I was telling myself about who I am and what I'm capable of.

Religion is the belief in someone else's experience; spirituality is the belief in your own experience. When we mistake our mental narratives for truth, we're essentially practicing a religion of limitation, worshipping at the altar of our own restrictions.

BREAKING THE PATTERN: FROM PAST TO PRESENT

Letting go of our past means forgiving those we feel have wronged us and accepting reality for what it is. This acceptance isn't passive resignation, it's radical ownership. Things couldn't have happened any other way because they didn't. This simple truth liberates us from the exhausting task of rewriting history.

But forgiveness extends beyond others to ourselves. We can't hate the experiences that have shaped us in order to love who we are. This includes accepting our own darkness and forgiving ourselves for the ways we've failed, faltered, or fled.

My client Mae spent years allowing others to mistreat her and not speaking up for her needs, manifesting as ulcers in her esophagus. When she finally forgave her parents and herself, when she set boundaries and changed her energetic vibration, the physical symptoms healed. Her body had been holding the story of her unworthiness—and when the story changed, so did her cellular reality.

THE FUTURE FREEDOM FORMULA

Most of us have anxieties about our future because we don't trust ourselves to actually be kind to ourselves in the face of adversity. We project forward the harsh inner dialogue that has tormented us in the past, creating a future we dread rather than one we desire.

A harsh inner dialogue prevents us from looking forward to creating and instead keeps us tethered to the fear of the ways in which we reprimanded ourselves in the past. In essence, we're cheating on our future with our past.

Stop cheating on your future with your past. This requires developing what I call "present-moment sovereignty"—the ability to recognize when we've left reality for the prison of our minds.

RETURNING TO THE BODY, RECLAIMING POWER

People suffer to the degree to which they are disconnected from their inner experience. When we live in our heads, replaying and projecting, we lose touch with our bodies, our most reliable compass for what's actually happening now.

Using our five senses becomes an anchor to reality. Feel your feet on the ground. Notice the temperature of the air. Hear the actual sounds around you, not the commentary in your head. This simple practice breaks the trance of mental time travel.

Once we release ourselve from the shackles of our mind and come back into our body, we realize the power of now. The present moment isn't just where peace lives… it's where power lives. It's the only place where conscious choice exists.

THE GARDEN OF CONSCIOUS CREATION

We're spiritual beings having a human experience. This means we have the capacity to transcend the purely material perspective that keeps us trapped in limitation. As our vibration increases—as we align more fully with this truth—our attachment to material outcomes naturally diminishes.

This doesn't mean rejecting success or abundance. It means redefining these concepts. Success becomes peace and freedom rather than external accumulation. Wealth becomes the richness of present-moment awareness rather than just financial assets.

Consciously chosen thoughts become seeds we plant in the garden of the universe, guiding what experiences grow and blossom. When we operate from this understanding, we stop being victims of circumstance and become conscious creators of experience.

THE PRACTICE OF PRESENT-MOMENT INQUIRY

Asking ourselves questions about our beliefs with curiosity rather than judgment will open the gate to the present moment. When anxiety strikes, instead of believing the mental story, we can investigate:

• Is this thought happening now, or am I remembering/projecting?

• What do I actually know to be true in this moment?

• What would love do here?

• How can I be kind to myself right now?

This inquiry breaks the hypnotic spell of unconscious thinking and returns us to reality—not the reality our minds construct, but the reality that exists in this moment, in this body, in this breath.

The journey from mental imprisonment to spiritual freedom isn't a destination, it's a daily practice of remembering who we truly are beneath the stories we tell ourselves. We are not prisoners in this world but voyagers through it, and the quality of our voyage depends entirely on the vibration we choose to embody.