“Don’t worry if your mind wanders”.
I initially thought meditation was about completely clearing your mind. I’d get worried if I couldn’t…I thought I was doing it wrong. Which, of course, resulted in more panicked thoughts.
I’ve realized, now, that meditation is actually about spending time with yourself, with your own thoughts and feelings and responses. At least, for me. And isn’t that lovely about meditation? It’s what you want it to be, I mean, within reason of course so it still somewhat fits the definition. Meditation is to “think deeply or focus one’s mind for a period of time, in silence or with the aid of chanting, for religious or spiritual purposes or as a method of relaxation”.
It just talks about thinking deeply and/or focusing. There’s nothing about silencing your mind. Your mind is wonderful. It’s creative and funny, and it’s incredible just the things that you can think of and become with the power of your mind. There are times when silencing your mind is just straight up mean!
There may be times when silencing your mind is good, but I see it more as being able to “silence” your mind by way of working through the thoughts and issues you are undergoing.
There have so many times where I’ve been afraid to be alone with my thoughts, so I watch a ton of tv shows, I play games on my phone, and I just try to keep my mind busy by jumping around to different things. I’m even less likely to workout or go walk around because of that. When I feel myself doing this…I realize that it’s time to do some work on my mind. I try not to pressure myself and try to find some type of intrinsic reason to get around to it, and I usually just tell myself that I’m going to feel so much better after, because I always do, no matter what the situation has been.
Silencing your mind is not so much trying to empty it of all thoughts, it’s trying to sort through the thoughts that you eventually realize are a bit ridiculous. It’s not that my feelings are invalid or anything. But at a certain point, coming to terms with reality helps me more than it’s going to hurt me in the long run. When I’m hurt by something, I’ll let it hurt. I’ll feel it through, but I’ll move on. I’ll still claim that hurt feeling for myself, but I don’t let it get in the way of my goals in life. I’ll even let it fuel me — but the important thing is that I’ve helped get rid of those overactive, ruminating thoughts that put a massive damper on my day and my work performance.
Sidenote: In a weird way, I’m trying now to make everything I write more specific towards me — I can’t really give general advice anymore, because I’ve started to realize JUST how damn different people are. Also, offering unwanted advice is extremely…unwanted. So instead of doing that, I’m trying to say what’s worked for me…and maybe it’ll work for you? I will react quite emotionally, however once I’m calmed down I switch over completely to logic. A bit strange, I’m working on combining the two in a proper dose, but we’re all different so figure out what works for you.
Essentially, silencing my mind is simply about easing my anxiety. I’m a natural born worrier, but I feel like I’m at my best whenever I actually work on it. And my absolute favorite thing to do is just stop what I’m doing, throw a timer on for 5 minutes, close my eyes, and sit there.
I also do a few other things: talking to myself as I drive late at night with the windows down and playing soft music, writing on my TextEdit documents on my computer, and writing in my handwritten journal. I’m not worried about saying or thinking anything stupid, I just let it all out. Even if it’s really embarrassing and I’m worried that it’ll force me to make a decision I don’t want (ex. do I want to continue pursuing a friendship, how do I deal with this specific person, etc). But this is really just part of it. Sometimes sitting and thinking is still the best way to do it.
I actively try to just sit there and do nothing, and every thought I have, I think — hey, isn’t that interesting? Sometimes when I’m writing in my own places that no one will see, I try to sound absurdly thought-provoking, and it’s silly because I know that I’m just being dramatic for no good reason. When I’m working through thoughts that may not stick or may not feel as permanent because they’re not physically applied to paper, I feel a lot more open with myself.
It’s funny that I would pursue these meditations or breathing exercises with the sole purpose of easing my worry…and then ultimately end up worrying that I wasn’t doing it right. I have an urge to do everything perfectly, so I’d worry I was wrong, then I’d become disappointed in myself for doing it wrong.
The good news is, I’m only dealing with myself when it comes to this meditation stuff, not another person’s emotions (whether a coworker, patient, or friend). For the most part, the meditation and thinking I do in my own head doesn’t directly negatively affect someone else. There’s not really a way to be wrong here…until you act on it, but that’s a topic for another time huh? I recently just read about thinking more about the problem at hand than the solution, because it seems that doing the former will allow you to form a conclusion eventually. It might take longer, but you’ll get there.
Basically, there’s more than one way to meditate. I’m not going to say there are hundreds, because that’s a bit over the top, so I’ll pick a grey area and say there’s anywhere from 2–100. You might enjoy using apps to find meditations, you might enjoy body scan relaxations, or you might like mind-calming ones better. You may enjoy silence, you may enjoy some instrumental music (I prefer a soft EDM-jazz mix) etc.
Don’t worry about doing it wrong, because you’re doing the meditation precisely to ease your worries. You’ll do great.
