Thanks for visiting - 2023 marks our 20th anniversary! This site is ad-free and supported by sales of our online courses. If you get value from what we write, click the link at the bottom of the page and read Day 1 of "Your inner narrative" to see if it's right for you...no email required. It's time for another installment of "Question and Answer Tuesdays!" Jim writes: "I live in a noisy environment with traffic sounds coming from outside and, at times, roommates who are moving around and talking. Is it ok to wear headphones and listen to music to block out these distractions? Along those lines, is guided meditation a good method for helping me to focus better so I can analyze my thoughts?" These are great questions because they allow us to address a few more misconceptions about meditating:
I'll address each of these, but first we need to come up with a working definition of meditation. Here are two: Short version Meditation isn't about "shutting everything out" or trying to stop thoughts. It's about strengthening awareness of thoughts, and learning to observe them without getting caught up in them. Longer version Our normal state is "lost in thought" - and, because this is our normal state, most of us don't realize we're lost in thought. It's a bit like a fish not realizing it's surrounded by water. It's always surrounded by water, so what is there to notice? This normal state leads to conditioned behavior, which dictates our decisions, actions, and reactions, and leads to the struggles we all face:
Meditating is a dedicated exercise that helps you strengthen awareness of your mind and its non-stop activity. It helps you develop the skill of observing it all without getting caught up in it. Developing a consistent practice will help combat being lost in thought. You can transfer the skills you develop during meditating to your "non-meditating time." We refer to this as bringing mindfulness to your daily life, and it allows you to break free from conditioned behavior and dramatically reduce your struggles and suffering. Put another way, you are no longer held hostage by the next thought, emotion, or urge that pops into your head. -- Now that we have a definition, let's look at your first question: Should you wear headphones and listen to music to block out external noises? No! When you meditate, you should observe everything that arises in your consciousness, including sounds, smells, thoughts, feelings, emotions, et cetera. Watch everything as it comes into being, exists, and passes - which it will if you don't indulge it (if you don't get caught up in it). Learn to recognize the temporary nature of all phenomena: whatever arises will pass; nothing is permanent. You mention roommates. There is nothing wrong with moving to a quieter area to practice, especially if you are surrounded by people who are going about their lives in a noisy manner. And I'm not challenging you to try to meditate during a live concert, or while your friends are in the same room cheering on their favorite sports team. But, you shouldn't strive to isolate yourself from reality and the "everyday" conditions that come with it. If you are meditating and you hear someone talking - or a dog barks, or a horn honks, or a siren wails - simply notice the sound and any thoughts, feelings, or emotions that arise about the sound, and return your attention to your anchor (usually your breath or a mantra). The same applies to smells, minor aches and pains, or whatever else might arise in consciousness (such as an itch, or a desire to stop meditating). You are strengthening awareness, so simply notice everything that comes and goes as it comes and goes. Don't judge it and don't fight it: don't indulge it in any way. Next, you ask about guided meditation. "Guided meditation" is listening to audio or watching a video that gives instructions to assist you in your practice. There are several pitfalls to this method, but these are the three we usually highlight:
Instead of becoming dependent on guided meditation, learn to do it properly by focusing on your breath or a mantra. If you do that, you will be able to meditate anytime and anywhere. Finally, you mention "analyzing thoughts" in your questions. It's important to note that meditation isn't analyzing thoughts. You don't dwell on your thoughts, and you don't dissect them or try to understand why they occur. You simply observe. If you analyze, you are indulging thoughts by engaging with them. This gives rise to more thoughts, which lead to emotions, which lead to more thoughts, which lead to more emotions...and on and on and on. You aren't strengthening awareness at this point - you are getting dragged around by your mind. So, again, simply observe. Strengthen awareness. Watch it all arise and pass. <>
Our minds constantly create stories about what we experience, and we spend most of our time caught up in those stories. This results in the stress and struggles of daily life. "Your inner narrative" (our 15-day online course) can help you break that pattern. Read Day 1 here (no email required). Chelsea, our Chief Mindfulness Officer and creator of "ARC: mindfulness for children," published a new article on the social journalism site Medium (started by the founders of Twitter). Here is an excerpt: "I remember being alone in my kitchen, clutching the counter and sinking to the floor, thinking 'so this is how I die: a fat girl choking on a Dorito'... I decided right then and there that I was going to change my eating habits and pay more attention to what I ate and how I ate it. It was time for a little mindful eating: a topic around which quite a few articles and blog posts have been constructed lately, and for good reason. Mindful eating can completely change your relationship with food, and I’ve listed a few of the tactics that helped me the most." Go to Medium to read the rest: "How I changed my eating habits with mindfulness and a bag of chips." < What are you trying to "cope" with?
Coping doesn't work - addressing the root cause does. We'll show you how. Thanks for visiting - last year (2023) marked our 20th anniversary! In 2024 we're releasing our newest program - it helps people who are stuck in a constant state of fight-or-flight. You can read more about it by clicking the link at the bottom of this article. It's time for another installment of "Question and Answer Tuesdays!" Erica writes: "I've read a lot about meditating on the Internet and, to be honest, it's very confusing. There seem to be dozens of different types, and conflicting instructions on what to do and how to do it. What type of meditation should I focus on? Or, should I do more than one type of meditation? I really don't know where to start." When you Google "how to meditate," you'll find millions of results (seriously!). We constantly get questions on how the different types compare, and which one somebody should practice: Samatha (or concentration), Vipassana (or insight), mindfulness, zazen, metta (or loving-kindness), guided, transcendental, MBSR...the list goes on and on. There are a lot of methods. There's a lot of advice. And, as you pointed out, much of it conflicts! It's easy to suffer information overload, which - according to Wikipedia - leads to a reduction in decision quality and a likelihood of no action being taken. That's a bit disheartening: there's so much information available that it overwhelms a lot of people and, as a result, they won't even attempt to meditate. It doesn't have to be complicated, though. The question I ask people is "Why do you want to meditate?" These are the most popular answers:
The one thing these answers have in common is a need to better understand the mind. Once you begin to understand the mind, how it works, and the problems it creates in your life, then you can focus on the method. If you don't have this understanding, however, you'll probably view meditating as a chore or an item to check off your "to-do list." That means you will bounce around from one type of meditation to another, never really focusing, and abandoning your efforts after a short period of time. In order to understand the mind, you need to become aware of the filters and constructs it places on top of reality. Put simply, we don't see things as they are - we see things as our minds present them. This brings us full circle to the original question: "What type of meditation do I focus on?" My answer is simple: when you strip away all the extraneous stuff, there is only ONE type. This one type involves strengthening awareness (also known as "cultivating mindfulness"), and learning to notice your mind and its activity (also known as "mental noise") without getting caught up in it. One more time: strengthening awareness and learning to notice your mind and its activity without getting caught up in it. What do we call this one type? Meditating! No fancy names, no extra labels, no added complexity. Here are the steps:
Don't get frustrated if it takes you a while to notice your attention has wandered from your anchor - sometimes you catch it immediately, sometimes it takes longer. It doesn't matter - simply return it to your anchor when you do notice. Notice and return, over and over and over again. As you develop more experience, attempt to actively refrain from judging and labeling thoughts, emotions, or anything else that arises. Drop the urge to categorize "this" as good or positive and "that" as bad or negative. Thoughts are just thoughts. Emotions are just emotions. They hold no special power over you unless you give it to them. They will go the same as they came, provided you don't cling to them and make them "yours." And, provided you don't try to chase after what gives you pleasant feelings or run away from what gives you unpleasant feelings. If you observe instead of interfering, you will see everything progress through a natural cycle of arising (coming), existing for a time, and passing (going). Don't get mad if a sound interrupts your practice. If something itches and you have to scratch it, scratch it. If you have to shift your position, shift your position. At the same time, if you can notice discomfort and the desire to alleviate it (scratching, shifting) and let it pass without acting on it, then do so. After all, discomfort is just discomfort. And, thoughts about discomfort are just thoughts about discomfort. And, urges to do something are just urges to do something. Simply return your attention to your anchor once you notice it has wandered and you're caught up in thoughts. Notice and return, over and over and over again. What does this do for you? If you develop a consistent practice, it gets easier to observe thoughts, emotions, and urges when you aren't practicing: this is referred to as being mindful. As you go through your day, you can see this "mental noise" as it arises and realize you don't have to get caught up in it or react to every single thing that happens around (or inside) you. Instead, you learn to let it all be as it is, independent of you and your attention. This is commonly referred to as "letting thoughts and emotions go," or letting them pass. It means you are choosing not to follow them down a path that culminates in conditioned behavior and habitual actions and reactions - a path that leads to struggles with stress, anxiety, self-doubt, et cetera. That's it. Forget all the different types, forget the labels, forget the complexity. Just start. Why not set a timer for 5 minutes right now? ___Are you stuck in a constant state of fight-or-flight? Are you struggling with all the problems it causes?
Are you even aware of all the problems it causes? If this sounds like you, read more about our newest program here. Last updated October, 2018. note: we link to our free guide to mindfulness and meditation at the bottom of the page (no email required). That title is a little misleading in the sense that you don't train your mind. Instead, you train your attention. Your mind will do what it does. Your job is to strengthen awareness of it - to develop the skill of noticing it all without getting caught up in it. It's challenging, because we all get caught up in analyzing the content of our minds - we label, judge, and try to figure out why thoughts and emotions exist:
But, it's not the content that matters. What matters is you get wrapped up in the content instead of moving your attention away from it. If you let those thoughts, emotions, and urges be as they are, independent from your and your attention, they will pass. They will come back, of course! But then they will pass again. If you practice moving your attention away over and over, you begin reversing a lifetime of conditioning that keeps you following your mind and habitually acting with desire for - or aversion towards - thoughts, emotions, urges, and the other things that arise in awareness. This is training your attention. It's not controlling your thoughts. It's not forcing yourself to think positive. It's learning to notice your compulsive mind and it's non-stop activity without getting caught up in it. And, it's choosing to move your attention away from it. Stop dealing with the symptoms.Stress, anxiety, self-confidence issues, the inability to stop bad habits, problems with sleep and focus, and on and on and on.
These and the other things we struggle with every day are only symptoms. The good news is, they all share the same root cause. The bad news is, if you don't address that root cause, the symptoms will keep coming back no matter what you do. That's why we wrote "An owner's guide to the mind." For almost 20 years, people have been using it to address the root cause of their daily struggles. Click here to view the contents and learn more. Last updated December, 2017. note: our free guide to mindfulness and meditation really is free - no email or registration required. The link is at the bottom of the page. It's time for another installment of "Question and Answer Tuesdays!" Kevin writes: "I have a quick temper, and I find myself getting angry often. I meditate off and on - usually when I'm stressed - and I like what it does for me. But, I need to figure out how I can use it to get over my anger, especially at other people when I feel 'wronged'?" Anger comes into being because something is happening that we don't want to be happening. Or, because something isn't happening that we do want to be happening. Maybe it's a barking dog. Or, a scratch on your car. Or, a hole in your favorite shirt. To use your example, you perceive that someone has treated you badly. Perhaps someone was rude to you. Or, they made you feel threatened or attacked. Regardless, you feel "wronged" and you have a desire to make that feeling go away. This desire gives rise to thoughts and emotions that ultimately condition our behavior and dictate our actions. These actions might be to keep everything bottled up inside. This can have serious consequences, however. To return to your example, if you choose to suppress or bury anger, it can surface in other ways: stress, aches and pains, illness, unhealthy mental states. Or, you may project it towards others. We've all had situations where we are mad at one person (for instance, our boss or a co-worker), and take it out on another (for instance, our spouse or children). But many of us don't bottle it up. Instead, we decided to do something - and, that "something" will probably be pointed and confrontational. After all, you're attacking a perceived threat (or, defending against one). So, our actions might be to argue, blame, lash out, or become physically aggressive. No matter what we do, the process that leads to our actions unfolds quickly. The thoughts, emotions, urges, and other mental activity that arise in relation to the original situation tend to sweep us away, and - as a result - our behavior is usually automatic and instantaneous. In other words, our reactions are habitual and don't leave room for much skillful contemplation. We take the bait of our minds, and drop into the patterns of retreating or attacking. But, if we learn to strengthen awareness through meditating, we can slow this process down and learn to observe it without getting caught up in it. Instead of giving in to the urge to reply, attack, or defend (or quietly seethe), we can watch that urge as it comes into being, exists, and ceases. Is it uncomfortable? Sure, especially at first. But, the discomfort isn't permanent either. It, like all of our mental activity, arises and passes - provided we don't give it fuel to persist by indulging it. Meditating allows us to see the temporary nature of all phenomena directly. We can watch it all unfold in a controlled environment (i.e., sitting and practicing), and - as we get better at it - we can transfer this ability to a non-controlled environment (i.e., daily life). As we learn, first-hand, that we no longer have to get caught up in (be a victim to) mental activity, it becomes easier to apply that knowledge to challenging situations in the real world. And, our compulsive minds cease dictating who we are and what we do. The key to seeing benefits, however, is developing a consistent practice. It's not a "spot fix" you only do when you get stressed. Instead, you have to do it every day. It's like building a muscle through exercise - you can't just do it "now and then" and expect to see results. The good thing about meditation is that it's simple. The bad thing is, most people don't realize it. There are so many misconceptions, and meditating is often steeped in mysticism and complexity: chanting, sitting in funny positions, trying to stop thinking and/or trying to control your mind. But, it's none of that. What are you trying to "cope" with?
Coping doesn't work - addressing the root cause does. We'll show you how. < note - on our site last week, we published "Meditation explained in 60 seconds." Click the link for a simple explanation you can share with family and friends. |