You think often, you think a lot. A whole new world has opened in your head before you even realize. New thought. Old thought. Long thought. It never stops.
What are you thinking of right now?
You have a strong mind and when it comes to meditation that is BIG BIG TROUBLE.
Here are top tips, for your meditation practice, especially meant for you big thinkers:
- Build a good meditation base: Take an upright comfortable seated meditation posture and be still. What you want to achieve is to follow your breath uninterrupted by your thoughts.
- Get familiar with your thoughts. Not their content but their patterns. At first, you will not notice single thoughts; rather, you will realize that you are thinking when you are in the middle of a daydream:
It goes like this, e.g.: “I will meet with Sam in an hour. I am sure she will be late. She is always late; I really dislike that people are not on time to an appointment. Also, it bothered me so much last time when she mentioned that thing about her holidays. Where did she go again?…”
Reading the above, did you not wonder “what thing about her holiday”? If you did, that’s exactly how we get caught in a daydream.
Thoughts proliferate by association
- Catch your thoughts at the start (not when they have spread and multiplied). You simply need to practice often and a lot. Take it like a game where the thought is your target.
- Keep a light heart. You will get nowhere by getting too serious about it, frowning, pushing and judging yourself. Quite the opposite. (in the game analogy, you try to catch the thought and not destroy it)
- Commit to your practice. I read somewhere: you can’t learn how to ski by trying 2 min every other week. The same goes with your habits that you want to change. Here is previous article if you need some kick on the commitment side (some like it hot).
- Breathe now. When you become good at catching your thoughts as they come, you can follow and stay with the breath without continuous thought interruption.
Try it out and see the results for yourself after a few weeks of daily practice!
You may still be interrupted sometimes by your thoughts (you don’t eradicate a lifelong habit in a couple of weeks) but you will notice very sharply when you get interrupted and simply calmly return to the breath.
Want to try this out? Let me know how it goes!
Filed under: Leadership and skills, Mind and soul Tagged: Analytical Mind, commitment, daydream, meditation, meditation practice, mindfulness, spirituality, thinker, Thought, thoughts
