I’ve been practising meditation for most of my life and have been teaching it for over the past 10 years and the most common thing I hear beginners say is that they can’t turn their thoughts off.
The thing is, you don’t need to turn the thoughts off for meditation. But you do want to create some space between the thoughts. The more you practice meditation the easier it is to create some distance and breathing space from the constant stream of thoughts.
When you create this space, you don’t become so involved or caught up in the drama that the mind creates. Your mind will always be thinking, planning, analyzing, and doing whatever it can to keep you focused on it.
Switch your focus
When you switch your focus to your breathing and stay focused on the breath, allowing everything else to drop away as soon as it arises, even just for 10 minutes, then that’s 10 minutes you have taken control of where your focus is. That’s 10 minutes of not worrying and giving your body a chance to rest and recover. That’s 10 minutes that you’ve felt peace.
And if you’ve felt peace once during this crisis… you can do it again!
Times of uncertainty can be made worse by acting on random thoughts that come up out of fear and worry. If you can learn to create that space by focusing on your breath, and slowly working on that basic skill over and over again, you’ll find that in the calmness, you’ll be able to make clearer, better decisions.
There are so many guided meditations and nature-based meditations on YouTube which can help you, but I also recommend just turning everything off and try to stay focused on your breathing.
How can you start?
Set a timer for 10 minutes. Become aware of how quickly the thoughts come up. As the thoughts come up, let them go without engaging in them. If you do engage in the thoughts, don’t beat yourself up or make judgments! Let that go and just refocus on your breathing.
If you can make this a daily habit, you’ll find that calmness will be easier to access for you. A calm mind is always there. It’s just clouded by thoughts! Your job in meditation is to observe that.
Namaste
Janine xxx
Did you know that there are tools we can use in the hypnotherapy sessions to help with mindfulness?
For more info, contact me
