Meditation Demystified: Why You Shouldn't Believe Everything You Think?
5 Things to Do With Your Mind During Meditation?
It is a well-known fact that meditation can literally and figuratively change your life for the better. However, few resources explore all that could happen when you close your eyes. Beyond sitting and waiting for the miraculous to happen, the mind can fire a wave of mental chatter and random incessant thoughts that threaten to steal your attention away from your intended focus (i.e., meditation).
So, despite your best intentions, dropping into the practice will make relatively new and seasoned practitioners alike think they aren’t doing it right. Likewise, it is commonplace for one to believe that practice may not be an ideal fit simply because assuming postures that embody what it looks like to sit in practice differs from all happening within.
If you, by chance, have found yourself wondering what it means to meditate and how one is supposed to practice when the mind goes rogue the moment you close your eyes, you are not alone. Thankfully, there are supportive practices that can help you to regain control of your attention. This post will outline what to do with your mind during meditation.
Everything Happens As You Believe
The universal truth of our being is that we are each unique individualized expressions of the Divine (aka spiritual beings) having a human incarnation. We are One with the One presence that is never an absence (aka the Divine), closer than our breath. Hence we are expansive beyond human conception, as we have a body and a mind that can go beyond the physical senses to think outside of circumstances.
As spiritual beings, having a human incarnation, we are energetic beings with an innate creative faculty to use the power of thought to co-create with universal intelligence to materialize our thoughts.
Since all thinking is creative, every thought is a unit of energy that can shift our energetic frequency. Everything is energy, and whether conscious or not, every thought we think and entertain generates an energetic vibration that magnetically attracts everything agreeable to its nature.
Like most things, all thoughts aren’t created equal, as they span the spectrum, from low to high vibrations with disempowering thoughts that originate from fear, doubt, and worry, emitting some of the lowest frequencies, to those of joy and happiness, which tops the scales with some of the highest vibrations.
Think that you are continuously surrounded by unlimited opportunities for more health, love, joy, financial wealth, and abundance, and you will indeed be met with more of the same. Whereas, if you singularly focus on the absolute worst that could happen, you are sure to manifest the substance of your fears. The more low vibrational thoughts you think, the more lack, limitations, and loss you experience until you shift your thoughts.
Being that like attracts like, every thought that focuses on what you don’t want continuously elicits a low vibrational frequency that essentially keeps the cycle going. The good news is that no matter how long we subject ourselves to old habits of thought, we each possess the inner power to change at will and begin again, chartering a new course to invite more love, life, and joy.
Going Within
Meditation is paying in-distractible attention to all that is unfolding on a moment-by-moment basis. Thanks to the invariable distractions competing for our attention, it is often easier said than done. Most are familiar with the idealized meditative postures and positioning; however, beyond the poised postures, meditation is achieved by settling both the mind and body into a calm state. This practice calls us to pull our attention away from the many things that may distract us from residing in the present.
One would think that simply being able to focus on any particular task equates with being in the present moment. However, the key to residing in the present moment lies in increasing our awareness of all that is while releasing judgment and attachment to an expected outcome by accepting what is.
5 Things to Do With Your Mind During Meditation?
1. Go Beyond the Silence
Assume a posture that empowers you to close your attention to outside distractions. Select an approach that allows you to feel the most at ease. Whether you elect to close your eyes or lower your gaze, closing your awareness to distractions supports one to go within.
Beyond merely sitting in silence lies a myriad random thoughts that can hijack our attention into a downward swirl of mental chatter. Hence the more thoughts we think, the more disconnected we are from the present moment. Feel into the quiet silence that emanates from being in the stillness. Redirect the flow of thoughts by bringing your awareness back to the breath as many times as need be.
2. Anchor Your Awareness in the Now
Contrary to popular belief, meditation does not require you to cease the flow of thought. Admit-tingly, it would make dropping into meditation a whole lot easier. However, the mind doesn’t quite work that way, as it does the complete opposite. Where your attention goes, your energy flows. Likewise, the faster you stop thoughts' rapid flow, the quicker they will flow. In other words the harder you try to cease its flow the more forceful it becomes as it rapidly fires one after another until we reclaim volition over our attention.
Understandably this can quickly leave one to wonder what they got themselves into. As spiritual beings having a human incarnation, we have control over where we direct our attention. Hence our power lies in our ability to shift our attention onto the things that can solely occur within the now moment.
Likewise, the breath is one of the faculties that can only happen within the present—focusing your awareness on the natural rhythm and flow of the breath roots your awareness within the now. When you find your attention drifting, be gracious with yourself by releasing any judgment and redirecting your attention back home to the breath as many times as needed.
3. Accept What Is
Our minds are in a persistent state of action and activity, replaying past events and experiences at will. Of which there will likely be experiences that you’d rather forget.
Thoughts and memories are infused with vibrational frequencies that can either increase or decrease our energetic frequency, making it much harder to observe all that flows through our experience objectively.
4. Release Any Guilt
Naturally, there are countless things that you can release. However, whenever you experience difficulty, there will likely be times when your experience feels too overwhelming to find an ounce of mental fortitude to engage in the practice. Guilt will likely follow, as with most things that misalign with what we believe we should feel.
Anytime you feel guilt arising, allow grace and release any feelings of guilt. As with the clouds that float across the sky, any number of things will cross through your awareness that can make you feel guilty. There will be seasons where life is not all rainbows and butterflies as we experience the ebbs and flows of life. Know that it is ok to miss the mark and experience feelings that may not feel comfortable. Permit yourself to release any guilt as often as needed, and know that this is precisely why it’s a practice.
5. Self Forgiveness
Forgiveness is a practice primarily reserved and emphasized as something we should do for others. However, forgiveness first begins with the self. There will be times when the density of life so clouds your vantage point that it may become challenging to not center blame and guilt on oneself.
Know that beyond every experience lies a lesson. As we grow and evolve, we will make mistakes along the way. Release any feelings of guilt, blame, or shame, permit yourself to forgive yourself, and allow yourself to begin again.
The Mindful Minute
A brief five-minute practice supports you to reclaim your attention by guiding you to redirect your awareness to the present moment.
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