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~I invite you to listen to the audio version shared above, where a guided meditation is provided that follows what is shared below in the text.
A mind that never rests. Thoughts and ideas swirling on a merry-go-round and not feeling as though we are the conductor of the ride. I can remember feeling this way for years, decades even, and feeling at a loss because I did not know how to stop them if I wanted to. Sure, an abundance of creativity and solutions sprang out of my always-bustling mind, but so did a lot of stress, worry, and rumination.
Part of the reason I think the common misconception about meditation being an activity in which we stop our thoughts is because the idea of the quieting the mind is what is actually achievable by learning the skill of meditation. But stopping the mind and quieting the mind are two different things. We don’t want to stop the mind from thinking. As I mentioned above, that is where and how we come up with ideas, how we solve dilemmas, how we progress! Quieting of the mind is like filtering our thoughts, and we are the filter – we have control of what we choose to think about, and what we know to be unconstructive, we are able to let it go. And equally part of quieting the mind is choosing when to engage with thoughts and when to rest in awareness, to be still without thinking in any given moment. When we put that lever into our power, we have control over our mind’s pace and direction of travel.
However, similar to having expectations versus having intentions, we cannot set a timeline for when we will acquire the ability to quiet the mind. Nope. It will happen naturally and in its own time, so long as we keep up our practice of meditating and practicing the skill that experiencing a quiet mind requires. So, to that point, our task is simple: create the conditions for the mind to rest, for our being to be still, and our breath to be deep and our sole focus for the minutes we have allotted in our meditation practice. A quiet mind will then appear of its own volition.
Let’s settle in and begin to breathe . . .
~To conclude each meditation session, I encourage you to recite a mantra of your choosing and design. In the Contentment Masterclass, I share my example, which you are welcome to use, tweak, or look to as a template to design your own. Also provided to enrollees of the course is a free trial of the guided meditation app I use.
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~Learn more about TSLL’s Contentment Masterclass: Discover the benefits of Meditation, which is included in the detailed syllabus shared here, watch the trailer, and read student reviews.
~Comments will be turned off for Meditation posts as you cultivate a practice guided by what you need and your journey to cultivating inner peace and aligning with your true self.
