How to Meditate: What to Do With Your Mind During Meditation

Wondering how to meditate? Perhaps youve seen images of trendy zen-looking people sitting in meditation radiating peace and calm. Maybe youve seen the latest headlines about how mindfulness meditation reduces stress, makes you smarter, and slows aging.

All this motivates you to buy a meditation cushion, some incense, and some candles..yeah, theres gotta be candles. You turn off your phone, you put your cat in the other room, and then you sit. You are meditating. But wait! A flood of thoughts is streaming through your mind and this just doesnt seem right.

Thoughts are Not the Enemy

Not to worry. A busy mind is normal. We have thousands of thoughts every day and its not the thoughts that are the enemy.

Sometimes people think of meditation as a way to stop thought. But thats not accurate. Its impossible for most people to stop thinking. The problem is not that we have thoughts, the problem is that we let ourselves become controlled by the thoughts instead of dealing with them skilfully. We get carried away by waves of thought and emotion without even being aware of it.

Through mindfulness, we become able to pay attention to our thoughts in a wise way. We are then able to gain insight into ourselves and this immense universe we live in. This insight can lead to effective and conscious action.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a technique for becoming more aware of our thoughts, of ourselves, of the world around us, of the truth.

Through the practice of mindfulness, we are able to hone our awareness. When we practice mindfulness we make a choice to pay attention to what is actually happening in this moment.

Why does this moment matter? Because stress and anxiety result from reliving the past and worrying about the future. {Click to tweet}

Mindfulness is about giving our full attention to just this moment without giving any mental energy to ruminating about the past or planning for the future.

There is a calm joy and freedom that comes from doing nothing but paying attention to this moment. Its like when you go to the beach, you feel the sand in your toes, you hear the sound of the waves, you see then sun on the water you are paying attention to your present experience with all your senses and it is calming. You get lost in the moment.

It is freeing to be fully present for experience.

Recognizing What is Really Happening

Heres the kicker: one of the most significant life-changing aspects of mindfulness is that we pay attention without applying judgement or evaluation to what we observe. We learn to see things as they really are. No bias, no blame, no verdict, no interpretation.

When we practice seeing things as they truly are we learn to recognize and put an end to unhelpful beliefs, perceptions, and responses that have become habits over our lifetimes. We can choose to respond to life with wisdom rather than knee jerk reactions based on something from our past that colours our perceptions. We learn to not view life events through a muddied lens. We can see clearly.

Instead of judging or evaluating what is passing before us we learn to acknowledge and accept not only events and situations but also our feelings, thoughts, and physical sensations. This is fear. This is joy. This is sorrow. Rather than, This is fearI shouldnt be afraid. This is joy.so many people have less than me and I have no right to be happy. This is sorrow.why am I always depressed?

When we become proficient at mindfulness we can stop experiencing things as filtered through our own opinions or theories or through the perceptions of others. This can be a very freeing experience.

Through mindfulness we become skilled at seeing the truth. So instead of applying biased stories to what we observe about ourselves, about others, and about the world, we learn to see things as they really are. Through mindfulness our eyes are opened to the truth of what is.

Imagine: seeing yourself as you truly are. Not through the distorted and twisted fiction presented by culture or family or strangers. By learning how to meditate using mindfulness, we can apply mindfulness to life.

Impermanence is Bliss

One of the key concepts of mindfulness is impermanence. Through mindfulness, we come to realize that all the thoughts and feelings we have, the ones that temporarily take over our beings and drive us to do things we dont even understand, that these too, are impermanent.

Thoughts and emotions come and go and arent as solid and real as we think they are. {Click to tweet}

Like clouds in the sky or bad weather, we can allow them to float on by without getting pulled along with them. This, too, is freeing.

How to Meditate? Use Mindfulness During Meditation

Mindfulness is an attitude, a practice, and a skill that we can apply to life. We hone our mindfulness skills through quiet, concentrated meditation.

In a basic mindfulness meditation practice, we sit quietly, focusing on the breath and then observe, without judgement, all of the passing thoughts, emotions, sensations or images that we experience. Then we bring our awareness back to the breath. Then we get carried away by thought. Then we notice that we have been carried away by thought. Then we come back to noticing the breath. Its a process that is repeated again and again. It is that moment when we become aware that we are caught up in thought that is the special moment of the practice awareness is being cultivated.

Mindfulness meditation stems from the Buddhist philosophies and meditations that have been used for centuries to help people find peace, freedom, and contentedness. Learning how to meditate is a simple yet profound way of getting to know yourself and your own feelings better.

Interested in learning how to meditate? My course called Rejuvenate, Restore, Revive includes a complete course. Be prepared it goes deep and its worth it.