PROLOGUE
THINK HEALTHY
Sometimes, the whole world seems to be
against us. Going outside is a dangerous adventure full of obstacles to overcome;
it is as if returning home safely and sane every day was more by luck than
something normal. They are out there, those villains, always on the lookout… they
attack us through advertisements, noise, flashy objects, sales, rules, loud
music, social media, telephones, they make us spend our money, they assault us,
and they chain us and control us. Nobody talks much anymore; everyone looks at their screens. The only
introspection of today’s human being is to get lost in the world of technology.
But are those villains really out there?
No, the villains are only inside you.
That’s right, the villain lives in your
mind and wants to destroy you, wants to lead you to spend, to eat unhealthy
food, to think that you do not deserve to be happy. He talks to you
and controls you; he weakens you, makes you feel less, makes you feel insecure,
makes you feel that your life is meaningless, depresses you, leads to
self-destructive behaviors, makes you aggressive, makes you apathetic, and even
leads you to think that it is not worth living, that your
dreams are not worth it, that they are impossible and that you will not achieve
anything in life… Have you heard them? Of course you hear them. They all
speak to us; they are always there.
ENOUGH! It is time for you to take
control; for you to decide to ignore them, to weaken their power in you, you
are stronger and you have the super power to get rid of them, to free yourself,
to go out and live free, feel safe, feel happy, change bad habits, eat healthy,
do everything you set your mind to, solve your problems, without stress, be at
peace and enjoy the silence of your mind.
Every day, humanity disconnects and loses
itself more. We are becoming slaves and robots programmed to react automatically. With so
many stimuli, we are losing the ability to look inward. We have a
growing need to get everything they offer us, to compare our life with others,
thus creating a false life in a social network to feel better, with the idea
that happiness is obtained from the outside or is measured according to what we
have or accomplish.
In the past, people were not so
interconnected with the outside world; therefore, they did not know much about
what was happening around the globe.
The information was more limited and not
so constant. To obtain something, you had to go buy it; to receive a mail you had
to wait for days or even weeks—there was no instant gratification. Everything
took time, effort and a process, which gave space to a more lasting and genuine
gratification and happiness. People lived happily with what they had around them since they did not
program themselves every second to need all the objects that were advertised. People
spent more time with the family, contemplating over sunsets or landscapes, in
endless talks with friends and family accompanied by a good cup of coffee at
home, without having to spend thousands on a brand of coffee.
There was no rush; they lived with less
information and with fewer needs, unintentionally living in a more
contemplative state and involuntarily meditating. Their mind did
not receive so much information and it was not necessary to
learn so much to be successful or happy, in their mind there were empty spaces,
which helped them to reorder ideas, to maintain their sanity. They
used the superpower naturally, perhaps without knowing it.
Today, there are no empty spaces in the
mind; it is full of information that we are unable to process and is saturated
with disordered and negative thoughts, which gives the villains the opportunity
to attack us and lead us straight to depression, to materialism, to giving
importance to things more than to emotions. Nowadays, people
measure their happiness with their bank account, with the size of their house,
with the name of their friends, although surely at the end of the day they feel
unsatisfied in their big house, next to their tired partner, and feeling empty
inside, posting and looking at their social media with more than thousand
friends, whom you perhaps don’t know or see less and less, but showing the
“perfect” life they lead.
The stress generated by this growing need
to have more and more and to satisfy the demands of a castrating, demanding and
competitive society makes our body and mind sick. The villains are
defeating us little by little.
Our mind and our body are not designed to
cope with this pace of life and if we do not give them a moment of rest a day,
there will come a point when it’ll begin to fail, causing both physical and
mental illnesses. That is why today meditation is a vital issue.
In the past, meditation was thought to be
a luxury that only the great masters, such as Buddha, could afford to do. It was
not even a concept that needed definition; they just did it naturally without
thinking about it. Life was so quiet and still that meditating was a natural
state of life. Later, it became an exotic fashion brought from the East and with a
misconception that it was practiced by people with money and a certain social
status, it did not achieve its goal as it became a social club where powerful
people met to perform an exotic practice to be fashionable… But now, this
information is available to everyone.
Today, meditation is a
primary need, an escape valve, a real alternative to prevent neurosis and
stress caused by our accelerated pace of life. It is the super
power that will help you beat all those villains in your head. The
social and economic pressure is now forty times greater, so the pressure
generated inside our body is enormous and may be on the verge of exploding. To
release this pressure, it is necessary to enter meditative states at least once
a day.
Meditation is more advanced than any
medicine in the world; the illness was created by your stress, by your mind, so
it will be your mind that has the power to heal you, but more than anything,
meditation will help us to prevent these diseases, save money, live in harmony,
solve our emotional and physical conflicts, sleep better and bring thousands of
other benefits.
Having a healthy body, eating healthy and
exercising are constantly being promoted as good habits, but not many talks
about having a healthy mind.
We only get advice on how to fight
depression or fix our mental health once is already broken; meditation should
be promoted as a preventive practice, a constant maintenance tool of the mind
to avoid reaching chronic levels of anxiety or stress, a way to be mentally
healthy.
It is said that your body is your temple,
yes, but your mind… is what keeps it standing. You can have a
perfect body, a perfect temple, but it can fall and be destroyed at any moment
if your mind is sick or unstable. Exercise and eat healthy, yes, of course, but above all, it is time to
exercise your mind.
It’s time to THINK HEALTHY.
You must learn to meditate, to make a
full stop, to focus on yourself and only on yourself, without the influence of
any memory, or stimulus, or old thoughts or any fantastic unreal worlds in your
mind. It is time for you to discover and awaken the power that lives within
you. Dare to meet yourself, take control of your mind, of your life, wake
up and learn to use that great superpower inside you.
Rei Vila is an Entrepreneur, Author, Designer and a Mental Health advocate and activist. To THINK HEALTHY is his priority and major purpose, promoting meditation as the GYM of the mind, and as a tool to keep you sane and balanced.
He is a lover of all the arts, he have studies in architecture, art history, design, music, performing arts and literature. Traveling the world and learning about other cultures is his other passion and it has led him to live, study and work in various countries such as Mexico, Canada, the United States, Spain, India and China, for which he has studied at least 5 languages.
In 2012, he decided to travel to India to become a certified yoga teacher. It was there in Rishikesh, north of India, where he knew deeply the world of meditation and from there, his purpose, his mission has been to share it with the world, so he began to give workshops where he realized how needy we all are of find inner peace and this inspired him to write his first book: Meditation - The Ultimate Superpower.
He recently founded "The Mind Conservatory" a site where people will be able to learn different styles of meditation and many other techniques, exercises and workshops to improve their mental health; also a place for people to find tools to create and sustain their own mental health routine and improve their quality of life by thinking healthy, and learning how to deal with the unpleasant thoughts and feelings. He will soon launch my own meditation technique and mobile APP to keep helping people to get closer and more engaged and interested on this amazing superpower and to promote mental health as a priority.
He lives in Shanghai, China with his wife and son since 2014, and he is currently the Art Director at Shanghai Disneyland.
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