View this post on Instagram

 

Yesterday I caught myself drowning in my own thoughts.

They weren’t pleasant though. They were destructive. Ugly. Manipulative.

I sat on the couch feeling paralyzed. I couldn’t move a muscle. All I wanted to do was listen to them. That was my first option. They seemed so serious, so rational. But the more I listened, the more I felt paralyzed.

My second option was to figure a way out. I contemplated the best solution that could reduce my mental chatter and take me back to a space of comfort and serenity.

But that didn’t work either. Sometimes overthinking solutions aggravates our suffering and becomes a problem on its own. After spending hours and hours lost in the nonstop stream of thoughts in my mind, I remembered a third option.

It’s something I’ve always done in meditation, and I’ve been implementing it recently:

Nothing.

I’ve done absolutely nothing about the mental chatter that’s been annoying me. I’ve been practicing this “nothingness” everywhere. I’m not sitting in a lotus position and my eyes are wide open. I’m moving, I’m working, and I’m taking care of my child.

When I stop trying to control the thoughts in my mind, they naturally dissipate, creating more space for wisdom and logic. Today I’ve found solutions that actually work and come from a place of common sense—not chaos and judgment.

That’s how we can all meditate…without actually meditating.

When we sit in meditation, when our bodies get into that space of physical and mental comfort, we relax. But the fact is we might only relax for a few minutes. Many are shocked to discover that meditation is the total opposite of relaxation.

The mind that has been calm for the last two minutes suddenly stops making sense. With our eyes closed and legs crossed, we mentally rebel. We are enraged and in disbelief. This session of meditation is supposed to calm my mind. It’s supposed to make me happy. What’s happening?

That’s the truth that many of us refuse to admit: the mind rarely goes silent. But we want it to be calm. We want it to stop talking. And maybe that’s the problem. The problem has never been our mind or the constant chatter it emits. The problem is how we feel about it and the high expectations we constantly set.

To meditate well, to experience that state of “bliss” that people talk about, we do nothing. We don’t fight. We don’t argue with the different thoughts that crop up every minute. We don’t find solutions or label what’s happening.

We watch.

We observe.

We breathe.

No matter how ugly and sad our thoughts may get, we stay still. Like a movie, we look at the scenes, we see what they contain, then move on to the next scene. But we usually stop at every frame. We want to change the story and help with the direction. We make it worse and escalate our pain.

Even if we don’t believe it’s possible, we should practice letting our annoying thoughts be. Like an itchy wound, they slowly dissolve and make space for rational thoughts. We can only make good choices when we are in a calm mental state.

So go ahead and meditate. Every day, every hour, every minute. Everywhere. When we befriend the chaos in our minds, what feels unpleasant suddenly becomes normal. What feels impossible instantly becomes possible.

The only way we can decrease our mental and emotional suffering is to accept its presence. What happens next might surprise you.

~