Chapter 31— How I control negative thoughts.
It’s much, much easier than you might expect.
It was way back in Chapter 12 that I touched on university-third-year-stress, but I quickly skimmed over meditation, mainly so I could write another Chapter on the whole thing. This is that Chapter. Let’s get in to it.
Back in 2015, Jen had been telling me for ages that meditation would be perfect for curing my stress. Then, as we moved in to 2016, she kept on telling me that meditation would be perfect for curing my stress.
Slowly but surely, I started to get more receptive to the idea of sitting with my own thoughts for 10–15 minutes every day, doing absolutely nothing but focusing on myself. Considering how stressed I was at the time, it actually seemed incredibly appealing. I couldn’t remember when I’d last had time to myself that involved no phone, no TV, no book or anyone trying to get in touch with me.
Caving to the Jen pressure.
So, I decided to give meditation a go. What did I have to lose? I headed down to the Buddhist Centre in Manchester’s Northern Quarter and did an hour of meditation which focused on the mindfulness of breathing. Well, it was about half an hour of meditation which came after half an hour of chatting as a group. Overall then just 30 minutes, sat in silence, focusing on my breath. Pretty simple.
Well, not all that simple. See, focusing on your breathing encourages mindfulness, and mindfulness is a skill. You can’t just do an hour of meditation and then have learned how to be mindful. Mindfulness takes time, and even now, six months on, I’m still learning. But let me take a step back and actually explain mindfulness.
Mindfulness is a mental state that you learn to achieve. The more you practice reaching that state, the better you’ll get. It’s why so many people who meditate, including myself, try to do it every day, even if just for five to ten minutes.
What mindfulness does is allow you to focus your awareness on the present moment. You encourage yourself to forget about the past, cease your worries about the future, and live in the present. Nothing else matters but where you are in that moment. And it isn’t easy to do, because your brain prefers to do things differently.
Your brain prefers to do things differently because no one has told your brain to do otherwise. Naturally, your brain will help you chase after the thoughts that bother you most, sending you on a continuous loop of anxiety, anger or frustration. It’s hard to control when you’re not actively caring for your mind.
Try something for me.
Wherever you are now, sit down and close your eyes, just for a minute.
Once you’re comfortable, take some deep breaths and give yourself a few seconds to calm everything down if you need to. As soon as you’re calm, concentrate on breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth. A four seconds in, one second hold and six second exhale method usually works best. Try to keep all of your focus on the breath and don’t let your mind wander off about anything else. Give it a go now, I’ll wait.
Did your mind wander? Did you start thinking about something you’d done earlier today or something you need to do later? Tough to stop, ain’t it?
It’s not easy to live in the present, because we all lead super busy lives. When you try to focus only on the present, you’re asking yourself to forget about everything that might be making you worried, or anxious, or stressed. But once you nail that focus, and learn to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings without letting them overwhelm you, you’ll find yourself more calm and relaxed in normal day-to-day life.
I mean that genuinely by the way, I’m a massive amount less bothered by things nowadays than I was before I started training myself to be mindful. When someone gets worked up over something, I can’t quite comprehend why they’re getting so annoyed. That’s not to say I don’t still get pissed off at certain things, but my mind is a ridiculous amount more peaceful than it was at the start of the year. I simply don’t let negative thoughts overwhelm me as much anymore.
If you want the same thing, I’d seriously encourage you to give meditation a go. I don’t want to sound like a crazy preacher with this Chapter, but if you meditate, you’re in incredibly successful company.
The only thing you have to understand though, is that it’s not instant. It took me a few months of almost daily dedication to better manage my thoughts and feelings. For you it might be different, everyone is unique.
Just don’t give up. Like I’ve said, mindfulness is a skill and as with any skill you don’t always feel the full effect until you get better at said skill. Commit, get better and you’ll be thanking me in six months.
Nowadays, I’m meditating at home rather than the Buddhist Centre. I can wake up, get ready, meditate for 10–15 minutes and carry on with my day. All without having to spend 30 minutes on the bus there and another 30 back. Bliss.
I’ve no idea if this Chapter has convinced any of you to at least try meditation (although I hope y’all tried the little exercise above) but it’s seriously worth a try. If you never respect my opinion on anything ever again, trust me when I recommend mindful meditation.
If you have time to go to the gym every day and lift weights, then I’m sure you have the time to look after your brain for 10 minutes of a morning.
Until tomorrow after I’ve meditated, ciao.
Everything else…
Not much else to say today, so I’ll just let you all know about Headspace if you haven’t heard of it already. Headspace is fantastic for anyone who is a total beginner to meditation, so I’d recommend that first. Don’t pay for it after the first 10 days though, there are plenty of YouTube videos if you still require guidance. Also see if you have a Buddhist Centre/Temple nearby which does daily meditation drop-ins. If not, Headspace, YouTube and then soft music (such as the tracks in the playlist below) is all you need.
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By the way, from now on, I’m going to put a random gif here every day. Just so people actually want to read ’til the end.
