mindful

Be Aware Of Your Thoughts

Be careful how you are talking to yourself, because you are listening.
Lisa M Hayes

A new study recently published in Nature Communications from a team at Queens University suggests that we have 6200 thoughts each day. And while this is a radically different number than those of the past which had pegged the number at 60,000 thoughts each day, each of us thinks a huge amount of the time. And few of us are aware of what we are thinking about. Few of us are aware of how much time we spend in the past or in the future.

Few of us are aware that the vast majority of our thoughts are negative and judgemental.

Often I find myself deeply in conversation with myself. I become aware I’ve constructed a conversation built upon layers of how I’d like things to be and not how they really are. I become aware of my attempt to rewrite the past or control the narrative in the future.

Can you relate to the above scenario? Do you see similarities in your own internal dialogue with rewriting the past to make it more favorable to yourself, or coloring the view of the future with rosy shades of winning?

Think about being in conversation with yourself for a moment.

I wonder, how many conversations do we have with ourselves each day? And though these conversations are occurring in our mind how strangely unaware we are of what’s being discussed.

This unawareness is not limited only to internal dialogue, but at times includes daily mundane routines such as walking down a flight of stairs. Often while engaged in one of these routines I become aware of two things. The first is that I’m actively engaged in conversation in my head and secondly, I don’t fully remember walking down the flight of stairs.

Of course I have a faint memory of the descent down the stairs, but most of my energy was directed to the conversation, meaning my awareness was not in the moment, my present moment awareness was absent. And surprise, my awareness was not in the conversation either. My mind was lingering in the past or quite possibly grasping toward the future, but I wasn’t paying attention to the content. I wasn’t working through options to solve a problem.

When I say conversation in my mind I’m not referring to the thinking we all do when we are working through a logistic problem at work, or trying to decided which school is best for our children. What I’m referring to is the mindless (automatic) conversations we all have throughout each day. Conversations that have a life of their own, and generally these streams of thoughts are judgmental or fantasizing in nature. It’s when you are listening that the amount of thoughts being produced becomes clear, and at times somewhat disturbing.

Whatever you focus your attention on will become important to you even if it’s unimportant
Sonya Parker

Examples of mindless thinking may include telling someone how to live their life, explaining to a friend why another friend is wrong or a myriad of subjects being created non-stop within our mind. It’s these conversations we need to become aware of if we hope to fully integrate with mindfulness and the present moment. If we want to embrace the power of dialogue you need to be aware of your thoughts.

Take a short break (10-15 minutes) a few times each day and listen to your thoughts. Be aware while you listen to the continuous stream of thoughts randomly bouncing around or maybe forming conversations in your head. Ask yourself, am I these thoughts I’m listening to? And also ask yourself if you are the one who is aware of your thinking. These short (10-15 minute) breaks can also be used for more directed mindfulness practice, such as watching your breath

It’s not even necessary in the beginning that you answer these questions. What’s important is to ask them each time you sit to watch and listen to your thoughts. The questions are only a device to help sweep away some pretty thick cobwebs. It’s the questions themselves that sharpens our awareness of these floating thought streams. The questions are like your windshield wipers on your car, and each time you focus your attention by asking a question you pull open the curtain in your mind.

Trust me I know this little exercise and the questions I’ve asked you to think about may seem way out in left field if you’re new to this. But if we have any hope of slowing down or even stopping the internal dialogue crashing around within our skull it’s important that we grow our self awareness. Our mind is populated with bias, assumptions, judgments and a myriad of mazes and tunnels we are not even aware that we’ve created.

Once you settle into sitting and listening to your thoughts try adding paying attention to the space that forms between your collection of thoughts. This space will appear as one thought fades and before the next one takes center stage. When you can let your focus rest within these thought spaces the size of the spaces will grow as will your silent awareness of current reality.

Throughout each day our minds generate thousands and thousands of mostly random thoughts. Current estimates of 40,000 to 60,000 thoughts appear in our mind each day. Most of these seemingly random thoughts escape our notice, they pop into our mind and pop out only to repeat themselves over and over and over each day. We want to become aware of these thoughts, become aware so we can move beyond random thinking.

Whoops! I looked up as I was clicking on publish to realize I was caught in a swirl of thoughts having nothing to do with what I’m trying to convey here. I forgot to include what may be the most important tip about how you are listening.

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”
Eckhart Tolle

When you take a break from your busy day to learn more about how you are thinking, the first and most important thing to remember is to not be judgmental as you watch your thoughts. Your thoughts will pour in like a waterfall and our job is to watch but also to be aware of when our judgment side starts yapping loudly about how bad, negative, terrible or even how good your thoughts are. Your thoughts are simply your thoughts and are neither good nor bad, your thoughts are automatically being generated within your brain, you’re not sitting there plotting to do something horrible. However, If you’re worried please talk with someone who can listen and offer help such at the national mental health resource page.

The more you watch the more random you’ll see your thoughts are. As you go about your day and you notice thoughts remind yourself they are only thoughts, and gently go back to what you were doing. When I see myself trapped in thoughts I simply say to myself or at times out-loud “thinking” and return to what I was doing. At times I have to say “thinking” a few times in a row to break the spell the thoughts are casting on my imagination, but mostly I know I’m thinking… Nothing more.

Becoming aware of your thoughts by using the word thinking merely brings your attention to what’s going on inside your mind, this word usage is not a judgement as to the goodness or badness of any particular thought, Our random thoughts will be happy and sad, angry and calm, bright and dark, silly and serious, Our thoughts sometimes may be disturbing and violent, and then turn into joyful and loving. I’m pointing all this out to share with you how random our 60,000 daily thoughts are and to assure you we all think violent and loving thoughts each day, it’s the nature of our minds randomness.

“Thinking” is merely a tool to show each of us how to be aware of your thoughts.

Leave your judgements and assumptions outside in a heap, as you watch your thoughts. This exercise is not about labeling your thoughts as “thinking”, no the act of saying to yourself “thinking” is simply a tool to snap your awareness into focus. I may become aware of having a spirited argument with a friend and instead of attempting to stop or judge the conversation I say “thinking”. Once I acknowledge I’m thinking I turn my attention back to the present moment or at times I’ll imagine the thoughts as balloons that float away and silently pop. Poof, poof, and poof. All this happens in less than a second.

When we don’t paint our thoughts with the big brush of judgement we are waking up our awareness from its distractions. Another benefit to not adding judgement to the mix is we avoid stuffing our thoughts and emotions down deep into our mind.

Acknowledging our thoughts allows you to Be Aware Of Your Thinking, we add nothing to our thinking and nothing will be left.

Here’s An Example

Imagine yourself in the shower, out of nowhere you find yourself having a conversation with a coworker, a loved-one or someone you don’t even know on a street corner. Now imagine the conversation turns into a heated argument, but of course you rise to the occasion and with wit and sparkle you prevail. Your conversation partner changes their mind gleefully adopting your point of view.

Is this a familiar scene? Do you have conversations with others in your mind, or should I say do you debate and lecture others while you are in the shower, in the car, riding an elevator or maybe walking around the block. If you’re like most people you have over 60,000 thoughts a day and many long discussions with other people.

All those thoughts and conversations take place in your mind, not in the physical world. All your thoughts are confined to your mind. What if you called your best friend and started yelling at her for things she said in one of your conversations that occurred in your mind. What do you think she her reaction would be?

Be Aware Of Your Thoughts

It’s simple, all our thoughts streaming through our mind come and go without having much effect on us until we grasp them. It’s the grasping onto our thoughts that creates a cascading ride on our emotional roller coaster. Once we start to connect out thoughts with the glue of belief, we’ve attributed reality to them and we suffer.

Choosing to be aware of your thoughts takes away their power over your emotional well-being. this disconnecting from your thoughts allows you to more clearly see and understand current reality.

Heading Photo by Samuel Austin on Unsplash

Motion In A Moment

Craig Daniels ·Leave a Comment

In the mid 1980’s I managed a catering – wholesale foods operation which gave me the opportunity to reinvent everything. I researched the competition from the Canadian border to NYC looking for trends and new thinking, I spent time wondering, pondering and brainstorming with abandon. Some of my mad stirring of the pot paid off, and some deepened the dent in my forehead from repeatedly connecting with the desk. And no it doesn’t feel good when you stop.

Early on I found motion in a moment. Within each moment opportunity exists, opportunity that is always in motion. Each moment is in dynamic motion spinning and churning without ceasing. What’s this have to do with running a busy catering operation, you may be asking right about now? I’ll tell you.

During the 80’s business coaching and personal development schemes where taking off, you couldn’t turn around without being offered an opportunity to take your business or even your life to a higher level. If you couldn’t make it to a live seminar there were VHS, Audio Tapes + CD’s available for home study. Remember this was not only before the internet it was also the same time compact discs had just come on the scene, and people could for the first time rent movies for home viewing. The information revolution was rolling through towns and cities with gusto.

Excitement about the possibilities to create something new was everywhere, you could feel the motion within each moment revealing itself. I happily allowed myself to be talked into taking a 12 week Robert Fritz course 0n expanding creativity and vision. So for 12 weeks it was me and the teacher spending 3 plus hours teaching me to crack open my creative side while embracing the vision. Wow, how could this not be worth all that cash I paid. I was learning to tap into the moment and find my higher self and learning how to attach vision to motion, though I didn’t know that at the time.

“Don’t be so loyal to your mind; the mind is not loyal to You.”
― Bert McCoy

A couple of months after completing the course I got all my employees together in a local deli for a creative jam. I asked everyone to think about where they thought the business could grow and how we would go about implementing those ideas. Of course the joke was on me because I never bothered to ask if they even had ideas or cared one way or the other. I had the vision thing and I was going to make sure everyone else joined me.

Six of us sat in the local deli and discussed their roles in the business with a few ideas peppered in between. The big ideas soon came from an outsider I’d invited to sit in with us for her business experience along with her wildly fertile imagination. I was counting on her input to help move the group forward. I was right about P. having a fertile imagination and before long the group had enthusiastically got on board with her ideas for serving our market.

Before I knew it I was free falling without a net, I had yet to share my vision and I was bereft of ideas to insert my beautiful technicolor vision within a group that was congratulating P. for her wonderfully stark, simple and easily understandable B+W plan.

Technicolor Technicolor (remember Technicolor?) I cried inside my mind as I gently shook while clinging to resistance from a place of fear. My vision was stalled and my grasp of the motion in a moment vision derailed. P. knew the space I was in and touching my arm she smiled with compassion telling me we could always do Technicolor next.

Motion In A Moment Unfolds

I didn’t then know about mindfulness, noticing assumptions, reserving judgement, active listening and it would be quite a while before the power of Generative Dialogue would cross the threshold of my consciousness.

Motion is what’s happening right now, right here. There is no past to retreat to, no future to rush toward. What we have is one moment unfolding smoothly into the next. Each moment presents motion, it’s a bit like a flower blooming right before our eyes. It’s only when we are distracted that we miss connecting with the motion embedded within each moment, always unfolding and always arising. The motion in a moment presents itself to us as a infinite opportunity.

Within each unfolding moment is an opportunity to pivot out of the deep chasm of ego we often find ourselves in. It was not knowing about using mindfulness to pivot that tied me in knots and doomed my vision. I clung to my vision ignoring the group as they moved forward. I was left in a heap along the side of the road not knowing how to listen or dwell in the motion in that moment and my employees moved on without me.

Part of being human is to attach to our memories, our brain runs more efficiently when it can repeat the same actions over and over, ignoring current reality in favor of efficiency. What’s happening in the here and now becomes stalled, and we kill motion. Our mind feeds us prerecorded perceptions of what we’ll see as we round life’s corners. As we climb the mountains and descend into the valleys of the familiar we believe we know what we’ll encounter before we get there. How is that possible, how can we know?

“It’s only when you’re forbidden to talk about the future that you suddenly realize how much the future normally occupies the present, how much of daily life is usually spent making plans and attempting to control the future. Never mind that you have no control over it. The idea of the future is our greatest entertainment, amusement, and time-killer.”
― Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

Below is a mindmap I created with a moment at its center. The map shows how the past and future are but memories and hopes we’ve created in our minds. Using mindfulness with this knowledge can aid us in living and functioning in each unfolding moment giving us access to new levels of creative collaboration and dynamic innovation.

Don’t get me wrong, memories are wonderful and help us to navigate and live a much richer daily life but they become distractions when we live our lives through our memories. Mindfulness can be like a new set of windshield wipers making your vision clearer and richer.

There is a warning sign along this road that’s labeled Shinny Objects, these are the distractions we all are exposed to 24/7. Unplug when you can and don’t forget to turn off those bleeping notifications living on your connected devices.

Mindfulness practice can be much more than sitting crossed legged on a cushion. Check out Bicycling Into Mindfulness for an alternative view of practice.

Mindful Meditation Opens Doors In Life

Craig Daniels ·Leave a Comment

This Mindful Meditation we see and hear about nearly everyday in blog posts, scattered across social media and inking its way across print media is much simpler to understand and to do than you may think.

For a brief moment imagine standing on a platform waiting for a train or subway car, now expand your imagining so you see you’re also in the middle of a workday crowd rushing to get to their jobs and running errands for the day with everyone slightly jostling each other on the platform worried they’ll be late, for whatever it is they think the have to do. Ask yourself “What Am I Doing Right Now?“

If you are distracted by the noise and energy on the station platform then it’s likely you’ve lost your focus and your connection to being mindful. If on the other hand you are aware of all the hubbub around you yet you are clam and focused on the moment you are inhabiting it’s likely you are being mindful.

Of course my little example above is a bit simplistic but closer to being in the moment without losing your focus than you might think. Being mindful is as simple as being present in each moment within each moment within each moment. Getting to that place can seem complicated but I assure you it is no more complicated than breathing in and then breathing out.

It’s no more complicated than feeling your left foot hit the ground and lift itself into the air while feeling your right foot do the same in sync with the left foot, that’s being mindful. Left than right and repeat, you’re moving forward right?

Each of us is on a seemingly endless journey along a road with many hills and valleys in the form of hopes and fears, in the form of judgments and assumptions about ourselves and about everyone and everything we come in contact with. Through the practice of mindful meditation we will discover a space we can inhabit that is free of judgments and assumptions. We can reach this space through a simple practice of breathing in and breathing out.

Our society urges us to practice wishful thinking and endless talking, but in the end these two practices are empty distractions and won’t help us to inhabit each moment in our life with focus, awareness and gusto (passion, vitality, love) and a feeling of being awake.

The practice is as vital and current today as it was 2500 years ago and you don’t have to join anything, pay anything, be anything (other than yourself), go anywhere, worship anything or anybody. No, you only need to sit and breathe in and out on a regular basis.

” it’s nothing special, but it is something”
shunryu suzuki

Mindful Meditation is a an act that’s as simple as watching yourself breathe in and out, it’s that simple, that basic. As your breath comes in and flows out your mind and body become synchronized. As your breath comes in and goes out you start to notice the stream of thoughts flowing through your mind, a stream of activity you usually are too distracted by the everyday noise to recognize.

Each of us has in the neighborhood of 60,000 thoughts each day, most of which we are unaware of. Most of these thoughts have little to do with what we are engaged in at the moment.

Practicing meditation allows us to create space within our mind which helps us to see each moment in a clearer and calmer view. This space gives us a chance to pause before we react to what’s going on around us and make more choices that are not colored by quick judgements, unfounded assumptions and unfocused basis.

Choose a quiet space for your mindful meditation practice and if at all possible pick a space located far away from all the external distractions in your life. If you are new to meditation you’ll soon find that your mind has more than enough thoughts and distractions without exposing yourself to extra noise and hum from the world while you sit in meditation. Choose a space where you can detach from your everyday life with ease.

Once you’ve spent enough time and sessions in meditation that you think it’s something you’d like to continue on a regular basis, consider creating part of that space into a dedicated area that’s reserved for practice. Maybe hang a few serene and peaceful pictures on the wall along with a small table for any items like books or candles you find inspiring to your practice.

Sitting in meditation should not be confused with torture. If your knees or back are hurting you more than likely will quit the practice. So why put yourself through excruciating pain? Sitting is a marathon not a sprint and sitting comfortably is important.

If you want to ache and pay penance for some sin you’ve committed I suggest you visit a monastery and sit for hours and hours and hours each day, that will do it.

For the rest of us I suggest trying different postures till you feel you’ve found what works for you. You can sit on a cushion, on a chair, walk or stand. Others do lengthened yoga exercise and meditate while they hold a position, good for them but not for most of us.

From time to time I sill sit on a cushion but mostly I sit in one of those ergonomic office chairs with the high back and headrest. I use a chair because it supports my back very well and that is one of the keys to meditation NEVER SLOUCH. I rest my hands palms down on my thighs or folded in my lap left hand on top of my right hand and my thumbs touching comfortably.

Many years ago when I sat in a Zen center one of the monks would gently touch my shoulder while pushing on my lower back to help me reposition my posture and stop slouching, but now when I’m sitting alone I find the chair keeps me very straight.

I gotta say, I miss having a monk remind me to not slouch. (note to self – work on that attachment)

When you begin your meditation practices, start with small chunks of time. Those who I’ve talked with over the years tell me 5, 7 or 10 minutes are worthy chunks of time to begin with. I personally always add 2 minutes to every chunk of time I’m committing to, so my start times would be 7, 9 and 12 minutes.

Why do I add 2 minutes? I add the 2 minutes because I never know how focused I am till I actually sit down in meditation, the extra two minutes is meant to absorb fidgeting around on the chair or cushion. I’m sure you all know it can be difficult to sit still when you first sit. So I think of the extra 2 minutes as throw-away minutes and then I get the most out of the remaining time. Even after years of sitting I still add 2 minutes to each session and sit either 37 or 47 minutes and let all my restlessness play out in the first 2 minutes.

Take a few deep breaths once you’ve gotten comfortable at the beginning of your meditation practice, try inhaling threw you nose for a count of 3 and exhaling through your mouth. Do this 2 or 3 times to settle things.

Some people can feel the air coming into their nose easily while others have to use their imagination, I’m one of the latter. I don’t feel the air until it is in my nose and starting to flow down into my lungs. But I have no problem with feeling it exit right at the entrance to my nose. Find a spot where it comes in and a spot where it flows out and sit with it as it comes in and goes out, comes in and goes out, comes in and goes out.

At the beginning as you are developing your practice bring the rising and falling of your chest of abdomen into your awareness if this helps. After a while you’ll be able to bring your focus down to a smaller area.

3 to 4 times during each sitting I will follow my breath as it travels into the back of my throat and then I’ll imagine it flowing down the out side of my neck into my shoulders and then reverses itself. I use this exercise to prod my neck and shoulders into releasing any accumulated tension which in turn frees up my breathing a bit more.

Observing the breath gives you refuge when your thoughts pop into your awareness and allows you to let them pass with judging if they are good or bad, right or wrong, light or dark. When you notice you are thinking gently bring your awareness back to your breath.

When sitting in meditation it doesn’t matter if you have evil thoughts or good thoughts, they are only thoughts to be regarded as “thinking.” Your thoughts are nether sinful nor virtuous, nether dark or light. You may think about punching someone in the face or maybe you’ll think about buying all the ice-cream from the local ice-cream truck and giving it away to all the kids and their parents in the nearby park.

Don’t be shocked by your thinking just label your thoughts as “thinking ” and come back to the breath.

If the thoughts become overwhelming or your emotions starting roaring remind yourself that you are neither your thoughts or your emotions. At the end of the day you get to decide if you’ll hook onto your thoughts and emotions or if you’ll bring your focus back to your breath and allow your thought and emotions to tire themselves out.

Uncomfortable thoughts and emotions are a great time to strengthen your practice by releasing the hold they have on you. It’s when we judge the thoughts and emotions as good or bad that we increase their power. return to your breath over and over and over, soon enough your thoughts and emotions will move on as if they were never there. Breathe in and breathe out.

How regularly you practice mindful meditation over a long stretch is more important than how long you sit, at least early on in your practice it is. 10 (12) minutes each and every day for 30 days is recommended over just 1 hour of straight sitting once a week. The commitment of sitting yourself down each day goes a long way toward connecting you with the present moment, connecting you with here and now.