The Mind Is a Superpower (And You Can Train It)
Jan 21, 2025Checkout the Journey Mindfulness Podcast on Spotify, Apple, & YouTube.
Consider Professor X from Marvel's X-Men. His body is broken, but his mind is extraordinary. He channels his power toward unity, toward the good of all beings. His counterpart Magneto possesses equal brilliance—but trauma has twisted his lens toward fear. One seeks connection. The other, division. Both have endured tragedy. Both have brilliant minds.
The difference isn't what happened to them. It's what they do with their minds.
You have this same superpower. The question is whether you'll train it.
The untrained mind is not a neutral thing. It wanders roughly half of every waking hour, and when it does, the thoughts skew negative—worry, anxiety, catastrophic thinking, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Your mind generates up to 70,000 thoughts per day. Most of them are running without your conscious awareness, shaping your emotions, your health, your life.
I once had a client meditate for the first time. I asked him to simply notice his thoughts. After a few minutes, he said he had zero thoughts—nothing happened. When I pointed to the voice that had been chattering the entire time, he was surprised. "I didn't realize that was thinking."
Most people believe they're self-aware. They're not. The voice runs constantly, and we've stopped questioning what it's saying.
Mindfulness is the practice of bringing awareness to this. Paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, without judgment. It sounds simple. It's not easy.
I learned this the hard way.
When I first arrived at a ten-day Vipassana retreat, the first two days were miserable. Two-hour meditation sessions starting at 4:30 AM. Pain radiated through my surgically repaired knee and bad back. When a few other men quietly left, I convinced myself this was too much. I'd bitten off more than I could chew.
I made an appointment with the teacher. I told him I was in pain, this was too hard, I needed to leave.
He listened with compassion. Then he asked: "Why did you come here?"
"I wanted to find something new. To ease my suffering. To find answers... peace... truth."
"I understand," he said. "You may leave anytime. No one is keeping you here. But you know what is out there. Why not find out what you have yet to discover here?"
If you've seen The Matrix, you know this moment. Morpheus, holding out the two pills. The choice between the familiar world and the unknown truth.
I stayed.
And over the following days, sitting in silence, I watched my mind unravel. All the delusions I'd been carrying. All the stories about how I'd been wronged, disadvantaged, victimized. How I was helpless to change. These thoughts had been running my life—and I hadn't even known they were there.
The purification was painful. But the teacher knew something I didn't: if I could break through that mental wall, I'd be free.
On day three, something shifted. The pain I'd been certain was destroying me simply vanished. One moment it was there, the next it was gone. Not the physical pain—the psychological pain. The weight I'd been carrying in my mind.
I realized my anger, which I'd held for years, came from a single source: my own belief that I was not worthy. Not capable. Doomed to suffer.
The insight cracked me open: I was the one doing this to myself.
This is what the silence teaches, if you're willing to enter it. Your wisdom and insight aren't found in another book, another podcast, another notification. They're found in the stillness, when you've turned inward and allowed yourself to see clearly.
Most people fear this silence. The unexamined life is comfortable. It takes courage to look at your thoughts, your beliefs, your judgments—and challenge them.
But if you do, you will be rewarded.
Try this: Sit in a straight, relaxed posture. Light a candle in a darkened room and gaze into the flame. After a few minutes, close your eyes. You'll still see the flame inside your mind. Sit with whatever arises—no phone, no clock, no agenda. Twenty to thirty minutes. When you finish, write down what you observed.
There's no right or wrong. What you discover is yours.
And try this: Write down the harshest thought you carry about yourself. Something like: I should be further along. Maybe I'm not good enough.
Now reframe it: Even though I'm not where I want to be, I can use this frustration as fuel. I've overcome harder things. Why would I limit myself now?
This isn't positive thinking. It's honest thinking. Meeting the inner critic with clarity instead of letting it run the show.
When you bring mindful awareness to your mind, you begin to set things in alignment with your truth. And truth, at its core, is love—love for yourself, for your capability, for the superpower you carry.
When that weight lifts, when you feel lightness where there was heaviness, you'll know you've accomplished something real.
We all have this potential. The question is whether you'll train it.
Ready to Go Deeper?
If this resonates, I invite you to take the next step. My Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course is an 8-week evidence-based program that teaches you how to work skillfully with your mind—the same foundation that transformed my life at that Vipassana retreat, made accessible for real life.
Or if you're a high-achiever who looks successful on the outside but feels something's missing on the inside, reach out about working together one-on-one. This is the work I was put here to do.
Your mind is already a superpower. Let's train it.
James O'Neill, LCPC is the founder of Journey Mindfulness in Ellicott City, Maryland. He's a certified MBSR instructor with over 20 years of clinical experience helping people move from limitation to alignment. Listen to the Journey Mindfulness Podcast on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.
