note - this turned out to be our most read and recommended article ever!
We published a new article on the site Medium. Here is an excerpt: "I grew up on Calvin and Hobbes, as I’m sure many of you did. Funny, mischievous, poignant, antagonistic, wise…the comic embodies all of these (and more) at various times. And, on occasion, all at once. But mindfulness? How can the boy and his tiger teach us anything about that?" Go to Medium to read the rest (you don't need to create an account to read it, but if you have an account and enjoy the article, please "Recommend" it). You can find all of Jon's articles on Medium here. < What are you trying to "cope" with?
Coping doesn't work - addressing the root cause does. We'll show you how. 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!" This week, we had similar questions from both Stacy and Adam: "How does 'observing thoughts' fit in with meditating? Do you watch them, or do you focus your attention on your mantra? I'm not sure which of the two I do, or if I try to do them both at once. And, what does a meditation session look like as you move between the mantra and thinking?" These are common questions. It can be confusing, especially when you read different instructions from different teachers. First, observing doesn't imply an active component. This means when you observe thoughts, you don't analyze or interact with them. You simply watch them as they come into being, exist, and cease (i.e., as they arise and pass). Second, you can only observe thoughts when you become aware of them. You can't observe thoughts when you are lost in them. And, meditating is a formal exercise that helps you move from "lost in thoughts" to "aware of thoughts". When you are meditating, you have an anchor - the two most common are your breath and a mantra. You focus your attention on this anchor. At some point, you will notice your attention has wandered and you'll become aware of thoughts. You may notice it immediately, or it may take some time. Regardless, once you notice, simply guide your attention back to the anchor. When you do this over and over again, two things happen:
"Learning to observe what arises and passes without getting caught up in it" (#2 above) is a skill you develop while meditating. This skill is made possible by training your attention (#1 above). As you develop this skill, it allows you to make a choice in each unfolding moment:
Indulging is our normal choice, though it's a bit of a misnomer to call it "a choice." Our default state is unaware, following our minds wherever they lead, mindlessly indulging mental phenomena, reacting habitually to desires and aversions. This default state results in our struggles and suffering. Not indulging allows us to move away from this default state. As far as how this unfolds in a meditation session, here's a sample of what it may look like (using a mantra as the anchor):
And so it goes! <>
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). We have almost 50 articles published on this blog and elsewhere (as of February, 2015). I'm a bit biased, but I think they are all worth reading! However, I understand that people can get lost in all the information and, as a result, not read much because they don't know where to start or what to focus on. With that in mind, I decided to create a "road map" to organize many of our articles in the context of the average person's journey with meditation. As you read, if you find any of the articles beneficial, please click the "Like" and/or Tweet buttons at the bottom of the posts. Our counters were reset a few months ago, so we appreciate you sharing (or, sharing again!) Stage 1: research and objections When people decide to investigate mindfulness and meditation, they tend to bring with them preconceived notions based on limited knowledge or stereotypes (picture the meditator on a mountain side, wearing robes, chanting, and sitting in the lotus position). And, a lot of people don't believe mindfulness and meditation will work for them because they feel they are different from everyone else: "My mind is just so much busier than everyone else's mind!" is something we hear almost every day. Or, "Meditation will make me uncaring." Or, "I can't just let thoughts go...I need to spend time analyzing them!" We've heard it all before. But, more important, we've seen it all proven wrong time and again. Here are articles pertaining to this stage:
Stage 2: misconceptions and bad information This stage overlaps with the previous one. It is, by far, the category with the most posts. Usually, people start to practice based on instructions they receive from a book or find on the Internet. Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about mindfulness and meditation out there. There are many misconceptions: "I'm supposed to stop thinking," "I'm supposed to eliminate bad/negative thoughts," "Meditation makes my mind worse (busier)!" Here are articles pertaining to this stage:
Stage 3: there is so much...what do I do? At this stage, people start suffering from "information overload." They continue to read and research, and find a plethora of different methods. They experiment, and usually lose focus because they bounce around from one method to another. "What type of meditation do I do?" is a common question, as is confusion over varying instructions and conflicting information. Here are articles pertaining to this stage:
Stage 4: excuses and inconsistency This stage involves people encountering a lack of motivation, and finding reasons (making excuses?) as to why they can't practice consistently. This stage is critical, as it is where most people give up: "It's not working for me," "I don't have the time," "I find it boring." This is usually the result of viewing mindfulness and meditation as a chore, or an item on your "todo" list. Instead, you need to view it as a way of being (or, a way of life). The question is, how do you get out of the "chore" mindset? How do you stop viewing it as just another task? The answer is, you have to understand your mind and the problems it creates in your life. If you approach mindfulness and meditation from this perspective, you will be motivated to do it every day. You will want to end the suffering your mind causes: stress, worry, anxiety, depression, issues with self-confidence, productivity, sleep...the list goes on and on. Here are articles pertaining to this stage:
In addition to the stages outlined above, below are categories with articles and resources that will help you develop a consistent practice and realize the benefits of mindfulness and meditation. Simple instructions
The present moment
Happiness
Compassion Question and Answer Tuesdays Last year we started a regular feature where we answer reader questions. Topics covered thus far include guided meditation, blocking out noises with headphones, if meditation can help improve self-confidence, dealing with anger, and many others. You can scroll through all the posts here: "Question and Answer Tuesdays." Miscellaneous
We will update this post as we write new articles, and add them to the appropriate stages or categories. We don't include every article we have written above. You can visit our writing index for a chronological list of blog posts and other published articles, as well as a breakdown of posts by various categories (and, the most popular blog posts updated monthly). < What are you trying to "cope" with?
Coping doesn't work - addressing the root cause does. We'll show you how. 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). Last updated December, 2017. note: we link to our free guide to mindfulness and meditation at the bottom of the page (no email required). The following post was written by Chelsea, our Chief Mindfulness Officer and creator of "ARC: mindfulness for children." -- We all know someone who exemplifies the word “productive” and just seems to always get things done. They always appear calm and collected, and never actually look busy while being busy. Their grip on efficiency puts others to shame, and they do it with such effortless grace that you can’t help but to look at them with a mixture of awe and envy. There is a plethora of articles out there with lists of tips to boost productivity, and they can be very helpful. They talk about chunking out your time, limiting distractions, prioritizing to-do lists, and taking care of your body (i.e. getting enough rest, eating right, and exercising). But, one thing that keeps popping up more and more on these lists is mindfulness meditation. This is not a coincidence. Productivity has several ingredients, but the key additives are time, focus, and energy. Becoming more mindful through a consistent meditation practice can give you more of all three. How? By keeping you grounded in the present moment. “The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all other moments.” ~Thich Nhat HanhHow many times have you ended your day wondering where all your time went? I’m not talking about those occasional days that go by quickly because you were so immersed in the tasks at hand that you lost track of time - most of us have experienced being in a state of “flow,” and there’s no denying that it’s a wonderful state to be in. But, how many of your day-to-day activities get you there? Life is full of the mundane tasks that are necessary, but fail to challenge us. We know they need to get done, but saying that it’s easy to get distracted in the world we live in is a gross understatement. Your day begins and before you know it, it’s over with little progress to show for it. This isn’t just bad for your productivity; this loss of time can wreak havoc on your sense of accomplishment and self-esteem. Placing yourself firmly in the present moment will pull you out of the hazy mind-fog that distraction, multi-tasking, and running on auto-pilot produce. If you learn how to pay attention to each and every moment, you suddenly have more of them. And, more moments infused with your undivided attention yield more accomplishment, which will energize you and give you the motivation you need to reclaim the rest of your time. What are you trying to "cope" with?
Coping doesn't work - addressing the root cause does. We'll show you how. Last updated October, 2017. note: we link to our free guide to mindfulness and meditation at the bottom of the page (no email required). Look at your email Inbox - what's it like? Are you the person who strives to keep it empty? When an email comes in, do you immediately decide what to do with it: take action, delegate, file, or delete? Or, are you like the other 99.9% of us who have a cluttered Inbox? I have an email dating back to February of last year in my Inbox. It's there because I was supposed to do something with it. Once a month I open it and remember what I was supposed to do. This has been going on for almost a year now, but there it sits...mocking me. Can you relate? Now, compare your mind to your email Inbox. And, thoughts to emails. When a new thought pops up, what do you do with it? Does it just sit there, cluttering up your mind? Do you try to ignore it, but get annoyed when you catch a glimpse of it? Or, do you purposefully keep it around "just in case?" Our minds tend to be much worse than our Inboxes. They are full of thoughts - what do you do with them? If you like them (i.e., you label them "good" or "positive"), you might try to keep them around; this is akin to forced positive thinking. If you don't like them (i.e., you label them "bad" or "negative"), you might try to suppress or repress them; this is never a healthy option. But, for all of the thoughts you know about, there are a lot more you don't know about. Your mind doesn't have an "off-switch" - it's constantly producing thoughts, and you're not even aware of most of them. You're not alone, though - if it's any consolation, this is the case for all of us (whether we realize it or not). As Eckhart Tolle often points out: "The human condition is lost in thought. " Regardless of your level of awareness, all of these thoughts are there. They give rise emotions, which lead to more thoughts and more emotions, which culminates in conditioned behavior (decisions, actions, reactions). And, this process determines your state of being. Returning to the analogy: If your mind is like a cluttered Inbox, you are most likely in a perpetual state of stress. You probably find yourself overwhelmed much of the time. You might suffer from feelings of anxiety or depression, as well as issues with sleep, focus, productivity, and so on. If, on the other hand, your mind is not like a cluttered Inbox, you are most likely in a more content state much of the time. You might find you are creative and focused, which results in greater productivity. And you probably don't lay awake at night, dwelling on thoughts of everything that has gone wrong (or, could go wrong) in your life. The question is, how do you "un-clutter" your mind? Especially if you don't even know about most of what's there? It's a bit of a trick question, because you don't actually un-clutter it. Instead, you learn to move your attention away from it and let it be as it is. You do this by strengthening awareness of your mind and its non-stop activity. You develop the skill of noticing it all without getting caught up in it. This is the essence of meditating. If you develop a consistent practice and bring mindfulness to your daily life, you will distance yourself from the mental clutter of the 50,000+ thoughts you are exposed to every day. Instead of continually being caught up in all of it - instead of being dragged around by all of it - you use what you need, and move your attention away from the rest. As a result, your life (unlike your Inbox) will be less chaotic. Now I need to figure out what to do with that email from last February. 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. Listed below are the top 5 articles we published in 2014. The list was based on total views, total Likes/Tweets/Shares, total "Recommends" (on Medium), and reader feedback via email and Facebook. Our counters on the blog were reset last month, so as you read (or re-read) the articles, please Like/Tweet/Share if you find them helpful. Or, if the article is on Medium, please "Recommend" it. 5.) My mind is too busy to meditate! 4.) Mindful eating - a funny story and a tutorial. 3.) The pursuit of happiness (or, stop looking for it "out there")! 2.) Stop "tomorrowing" yourself to the end of your life. 1.) Searching for happiness - is it out there? And, honorable mention: My journey with meditation. And, why you should do it too. < What are you trying to "cope" with?
Coping doesn't work - addressing the root cause does. We'll show you how. Last updated November, 2017. note: we link to our free guide to mindfulness and meditation at the bottom of the page (no email required). The following post was written by Chelsea, our Chief Mindfulness Officer and creator of "ARC: mindfulness for children." -- Thanksgiving and its two alter-egos, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, have just passed. The few stores that hadn’t gilded their displays in Christmas colors the minute Halloween was over have surely done so by now. The pressure is on and the clock is ticking, but the month of December doesn’t have to feel like a mad dash to the end of the year. Here are a few tips on how to stay mindful and keep the joy-killing stress at bay. 1.) Don’t just be grateful, stay grateful. We spend Thanksgiving Day surrounded by family and friends in celebration of everything we have because it’s easy to forget just how lucky we are. When we’re embroiled in the everyday events of home life and work, it’s nice to have a designated holiday as a reminder to pause and be thankful for our health and loved ones. But, gratitude doesn’t need to be relegated to just one day a year or to such big-ticket items. Carry that sense of appreciation into December and beyond by starting (and committing to!) a gratitude journal and writing down a couple of things that strike you each day - you’d be surprised at the number of things to be grateful for when you actually start to take notice. Little things like another checkout lane opening up in the grocery store or finding a decent parking spot will start making their way onto an ever-growing list of favorite things, and before you know it, Julie Andrews won’t have nothin’ on you. Noticing the small stuff each day will help keep you grounded, humble, and focused on one awesome thing at a time. 2.) Engage your senses. Visions of sugarplums may dance in our heads when we think of the holidays, but taste isn’t the only sense that the season can titillate. Breathe in deeply and immerse yourself in the wonderful scents of the season such as nutmeg, cinnamon, and pine. Watch your breath crystallize into fog in the chilly air, and bathe in the warmth of a fire or a cozy sweater. Have you ever driven down the road on a frosty night with the windows down and the heater blasting on your feet? Do it; it’s like apple pie à la mode for your sense of touch. Listen to the tinkling of bells and laughter, and look at the arrays of colorful lights and happy faces. The holiday season is a veritable cornucopia of all-around sensory stimulation that you can use to envelope yourself in the present moment. 3.) Simplify. With everything going on, now is not the time to try out that new super-complicated recipe. Stock up on frozen foods and bust out a few easy casseroles over the coming weeks. Making your menus quick and simple will allow you to spend your evenings on the things that really matter. Long gift list? Stage a minor rebellion against consumerism and consider limiting your “nice” list to immediate family members only. For large families, Secret Santa gift-giving can lighten your load both mentally and financially. Or, you could ditch the tangibles completely and opt for donating to your loved ones’ favorite charities in their names. 4.) Don't forget to take care of yourself, too. While the holiday season is the time of year when we think about others the most, it’s important to remember self-care. Take a bath, read a book, get a massage... and don’t skip your meditation sessions! Give yourself permission to say “no," and reassess your obligations. Not every party needs you there (I promise!), so limit the number of commitments you make. Everyone has their limits, so be aware of and accept yours. Your sanity will thank you for it. 5.) Walk it off. The temperatures have plummeted and it’s tempting to stay inside under the covers, but taking a walk will do more than help you burn that bird: being outside in the sunlight can be a great mood-booster and help you reset your gauges. The brisk air will help clear your mind, and the exercise will give you more energy to deal with any challenges that might pop up (like a last, lonely cookie that needs to be eaten). So, bundle up and move it outside! The moral of the story is that the holiday season is supposed to be a time of warmth and happiness; if you truly enjoy baking 25 dozen cookies each December and hosting a gazillion parties, then do it. But, stretching yourself thin can quickly dull your ability to stay in the present moment enough to enjoy it. Re-evaluate your priorities and ditch anything that’s not essential, because your presence - both physical and mental - is the best gift you can give anyway. What are you trying to "cope" with?
Coping doesn't work - addressing the root cause does. We'll show you how. |