Save me from the incessant monkey
We all experience intrusive thoughts from our restless monkey minds, and on some days, they feel especially overwhelming.
My partner and I recently returned to the UK after spending a month in Kenya. I’ve often found that traveling can be incredibly stressful—the bustle of a busy airport, followed by being crammed into a narrow tube at 40,000ft with hundreds of strangers, really pushes my limits.
Surprisingly, on this trip, I handled the endless security checks and unexpected flight delays with a calm I hadn’t experienced before. I was fully present and deeply grateful for the incredible month I’d spent in Kenya with Natasha.
That tranquility, however, was short-lived. Upon arriving at Heathrow, we discovered that the taxi scheduled to pick us up hadn’t turned up.
In an instant, my mind became as turbulent as that flight had been, bombarded by thoughts like:
- “I’m definitely going to give the taxi driver a piece of my mind when he finally shows up.”
- “They must be lying to us—they forgot to book the cab.”
- “I’m going to leave a very bad review for this company as soon as I can.”
These intrusive thoughts were taking up all the mental space I needed to figure out how to get home.
In essence, I was experiencing what’s known as psychic entropy.
What is psychic entropy
At its core, psychic entropy describes a fracturing of our inner world — a disturbance in the ordered flow of consciousness when the information we receive overwhelms and clashes with our desired goals.
When we arrived back in the UK from our holiday and we couldn’t find the taxi, this conflicted with my immediate goal – to get back home in order to unpack, shower, eat and rest after a long flight.
Flow of consciousness broke down and I was unable to control my thoughts. I was imagining scenarios in my head of ‘having a go’ at the taxi driver when we finally found him. Although I realised this wouldn’t be a great idea, my tiredness made these angry, intrusive thoughts difficult to avoid.
Our minds are like finely tuned instruments; when external signals conflict with your internal harmony, the resulting discord scatters focus and muddles your purpose.
In this state, negative emotions—whether they are a creeping sadness, vitriolic anger, an edge of fear, an undercurrent of anxiety or the dull ache of boredom—take root, siphoning away the clarity and psychic energy needed to engage with the world around you.
Characteristics of flow state
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his groundbreaking book ‘Flow’, identified the antithesis of psychic entropy: a state he called flow.
During these moments, every piece of information that enters our consciousness aligns perfectly with our intentions, allowing us to channel our mental energy exactly where we want it.
This ‘optimal experience’ frees our attention from the draining battle against negative emotions, letting us focus entirely on pursuing our goals. It’s a state where mind and purpose become one.
The characteristics of flow state include:
- Complete Immersion
Fully absorbed in the task at hand, where your focus is unwavering and distractions fade away. - Balanced Challenge and Skill
Engaged in activities where the difficulty level perfectly matches your abilities, creating a natural, motivating challenge. - Altered Sense of Time
Time can feel distorted—either speeding by or slowing down—as you dive deeper into your work. - Intrinsic Enjoyment
Experience a deep sense of satisfaction from the activity itself, without needing external rewards or recognition. - Clear Focus
A heightened state of concentration is experienced where your attention is directed solely on the present task. - Ego Transcendence
Self-conscious thoughts are let go, allowing you to perform without the burden of judgment or expectations. - Perceived Control
You feel confident in your ability to influence outcomes and navigate challenges with ease. - Instant Feedback
Benefit from immediate responses to your actions, which help you adjust and improve continuously.
Psychic entropy and addiction
I am interested in the concept of psychic entropy because of my own battles with addiction. When I was drinking, minor stresses would send me back to the bottle after a period of sobriety.
It felt as if I had no resilience to handle the trials and tribulations one encounters in life – trials that my peers seemed to be handling with ease.
As I now understand, I had a low threshold for handling stress – or I experienced psychic entropy easily and sought refuge in the transient comforts of chemical stimuli.
I believe this state of persistent psychic entropy created a fertile ground for my addiction which was simply a seductive escape promising fleeting relief from the chaos I was experiencing in my inner world.
When the mind is frequently caught in the grip of psychic entropy, the allure of quick fixes becomes irresistible. The rush of a substance, the thrill of compulsive behavior, or even the pull of digital distractions offers an escape from the stresses of everyday life.
Yet, this escape is a mirage.
The very act that promises to restore order only deepens the cracks of our inner world, trapping us in a self-perpetuating cycle where every indulgence reinforces the entropy.
The more my addiction took hold, the less resilience I had and the more I experienced psychic entropy.
My addiction became both the symptom and the accelerator of psychic entropy.
Meditating to increase psychic entropic threshold
Our capacity to manage stress can determine not only our success but the very quality of our lives.
However, stress isn’t merely an enemy to be vanquished. It can also be a potent catalyst for growth.
Meditation—and in particular, Holosync meditation—offers a controlled means to expand our threshold for stress, enabling us to thrive amid life’s inevitable challenges.
Bill Harris, who created the Holosync programme, puts forward an idea in his book, Thresholds of the Mind, that each person possesses a stress threshold—a limit that, when approached, can either overwhelm or transform us.
Harris also posits that this threshold is not static and that through deliberate practices, we can gradually expand our capacity to absorb and process stress, leading to higher states of awareness and mental resilience.
And that is exactly what Holosync does. It gradually stresses the mind/consciousness system using binaural frequencies in a controlled manner until psychic entropy is reached. It then breaks down and reforms as a more resilient system.
Traditional meditation practices play a crucial role in this transformative journey. By training our minds to observe rather than react, meditation creates a mental sanctuary—a buffer zone where stress can be experienced without being destructive.
In this state, we learn to see stress as a dynamic force, one that can be integrated into our creative processes rather than a mere disruptor of peace. Regular meditation practice builds what might be called a “stress muscle,” gradually strengthening our ability to cope with and even harness the energy of stressful experiences.
Consider the following benefits of meditation in enhancing stress tolerance:
- Improved Emotional Regulation:
Meditation cultivates a non-judgmental awareness that enables us to observe our emotions without becoming overwhelmed. Over time, this practice helps regulate our emotional responses, allowing us to face stress with a calm, measured approach. - Enhanced Cognitive Flexibility:
Through consistent meditation, our brain’s neural networks become more adaptive. This increased plasticity not only supports clearer thinking in stressful situations but also encourages innovative problem-solving and creative flow.
Holosync meditation, in particular, represents a sophisticated evolution of these practices. Utilising binaural beats and advanced audio technology, it is designed to facilitate rapid and profound meditative states.
Meditating for 1 hour with Holosync is said to be the equivalent of 8 hours of standard meditation.
The controlled sound frequencies in Holosync meditation encourage a recalibration of the brain, enabling it to not just endure stress but to reorganise its neural pathways for greater resilience and adaptability.
The transformative power of Holosync meditation lies in its capacity to shift our baseline state of being. By consistently engaging in this practice, individuals can achieve:
- Increased Tolerance for Psychic Entropy: Just as a well-maintained machine can operate efficiently under higher loads, a mind conditioned by meditation becomes capable of withstanding and even thriving under greater levels of psychic entropy. This heightened tolerance translates to an increased ability to manage stress without succumbing to its negative effects.
- Facilitation of Deep Flow States: As the mind becomes more adept at handling stress, it naturally transitions into states of flow with greater ease. These moments of intense focus and creative clarity not only enhance performance but also contribute to an overall sense of fulfilment and well-being.
The synthesis of these insights leads to a compelling vision of personal transformation. In our journey through life, stress is not an adversary but a partner—a force that, when integrated mindfully, can propel us to new heights of consciousness.
Meditation, especially practices like Holosync, equips us with the tools to convert the chaotic energy of stress into a resource for continuous evolution.
Ultimately, the challenge is not to eliminate stress but to master it. Through the deliberate practice of meditation, we can expand our stress thresholds, enabling us to navigate life’s complexities with grace and resilience.
By transforming stress into a driver for growth, we open ourselves to the possibility of living not just in survival mode, but in a state of dynamic flow—a state where every challenge is an opportunity, and every moment is infused with the potential for creative transformation.
Pain is the touchstone to spiritual growth
The journey from psychic entropy to flow state represents one of the fundamental challenges of modern life. As my taxi incident at Heathrow demonstrates, even after periods of calm, our mental equilibrium can be quickly disrupted by seemingly minor setbacks.
Through meditation, we can gradually expand our capacity to handle stress and maintain inner harmony even in challenging situations. The goal isn’t to eliminate stress entirely, but rather to develop the resilience needed to transform it into a catalyst for growth.
This understanding offers a powerful perspective: each moment of psychic entropy becomes an opportunity to strengthen our mental resilience. When we view our challenges this way, we move beyond merely coping with stress to actively using it as fuel for personal transformation.
As the saying in recovery circles goes, pain is the touchstone to spiritual growth.
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