The Corners of Your Mind: How Well Are You Using Your Mental & Emotional Resources?

In a previous article, we discovered the Mind Canvas model for personal mastery; a simple and intuitive way to master your thoughts, emotions, actions, and reactions.

We saw how most of our daily thoughts are influenced by these 2 lies we tell ourselves every day, which form the 2 dimensions of the Mind Canvas model:

1. Mental Time: The illusion that time as we know it exists,
2. Interpretation / Meaning-making / Duality: The illusion that things are "good" or "bad".

And we saw that the key to eradicating suffering, removing limitations from our lives, empowering ourselves, and experiencing more well-being and joy, lies in understanding these 2 dimensions, and using them to our advantage.

The corners of your mind

The 2 dimensions of the Mind Canvas™ (Time and Interpretation), give us a series of quadrants or “corners of our mind”.

This is a very simple yet powerful way to categorize most of the types of thoughts you may have. And if you know where your thoughts come from (and whether they are self-limiting or self-empowering), you can then choose if you like that or if your want to change into more resourceful corners of your mind. 

At any moment of the day, our attention is focused on one or more of these quadrants. Which quadrant you are looking at determines how you feel, your attitude, and therefore your actions, results, and impact.

So if you want to increase your impact, change your life circumstances, feel better and empowered, and experience peace of mind and well-being, you want to be able to know how your mind is working at any time and to shift it at will. The Mind Canvas enables you to do just that.

The different corners of your mind are:

• Positive Past: This is our empowering memory
• Positive Present: This is our empowering perception
• Positive Future: This is our empowering imagination
• Neutral Past: Thinking of the past in a factual way, without interpretation
• Neutral Present: Perceiving the now in a factual way (mindfulness)
• Neutral Future: Thinking of the future in a factual way, without interpretation
• Negative Past: This is our disempowering memory
• Negative Present: This is our disempowering perception
• Negative Future: This is our disempowering imagination

The contents of your mind

Imagine you are in a dark room—the room of your mind. In each corner, there are ideas, thoughts, answers, and resources waiting for you to find them. Some are useful, while some can limit you. The things you find depend on which way you point with the light of your attention.

Each corner of your mind has different contents or resources.

“Every man is what he is, because of the dominating thoughts which he permits to occupy his mind.” - Napoleon Hill

Remember that what you think about determines what you feel so, for example, why not:

• Rejoice in your successes
• Discover your talents and passions
• Set your purpose, goals, and plans
• See "failures" and "mistakes" as "learning experiences"
• See your "weaknesses" as "opportunities for growth"
• See your "worries" as "information about what you don't want"

The source of your feelings

What you think about (the contents of your mind), determines what you feel. Any feeling or emotion you can think of can be found in one or more of the corners of your Mind Canvas. 

“The thoughts you think create your feelings and emotions. They are the Key factor in what you say and do. The entire quality of your life is dependent on the thoughts you choose to focus on.” - Zelig Pliskin

What self-limiting feelings do you feel more often than you'd like? What corners of your mind are causing these feelings?

What self-empowering feelings would you like to feel more often? What corners of your mind should you use more to access those feelings?

Imbalances in the use of specific Mind Canvas quadrants

Our specific preferences on the two dimensions of the Mind Canvas—time and interpretation—make us tend to use some corners of our minds more than others.

This is a problem because, by excessively using a Mind Canvas quadrant, we can fall into some pitfalls that can affect our perceptions of ourselves, our feelings, and our relationships. As an example, thinking and talking excessively about your past successes and the things you have achieved (positive past) can make people think you are narcissistic, or arrogant.

This is also a missed opportunity to tap into other inner resources that are hidden in corners of your mind you don’t use so often. These resources are waiting for you to acknowledge them and use them to your advantage.

I am a good example of this since I am very good at using my positive future quadrant; I am a visionary, I set goals, make plans, and come up with creative solutions to problems. But I am not so good when it comes to my negative future, forgetting sometimes to consider the risks that come with my goals and ideas. This makes me idealize things and then be negatively surprised—and even demotivated—when things that I did not expect happen.

Each mind quadrant has a number of resources to offer. Even if you have a preference and talent for one particular quadrant, you might be using just a part of its potential. There are always ways you can take more advantage of each mind quadrant. For example, you might frequently tap into memories of good moments in the past, which makes you feel good and makes others feel inspired. But you might not be using the same strategy in the positive past to tap into other emotional states you need today or for the future, such as confidence, self-esteem, and contentment.

Your body is a real pharmacy and your ability to use your Mind Canvas at will is what gives you access to many of the hormones and neurotransmitters that are behind your emotional states.

How is your mind working?

Do you have a resourceful mind? Do you use all of the quadrants of your Mind Canvas to your advantage?

You can find out by taking the free Mind Resourcefulness Assessment.

What quadrants do you use to your advantage? Which ones are working against you? Share your results in the comments below.

InJoy, Juan Campoo

Note: This is an extract from my book 'The Mind Canvas: A Revolutionary Approach to Personal Mastery'.

About the author

Juan Campoo is the founder of Inner Acceleration, and a seasoned mindset & behavior coach, trainer, and consultant, facilitating personal, leader, and team evolution. Creator of the Mind Canvas model for personal mastery and writer of the Amazon Best-Selling book under the same name. In the last 13+ years, he has coached, trained, and taught more than 15.000 people either 1-on-1, in groups, or through online courses. Check out other free resources here.