A common technique is to acknowledge thoughts and then let them go. Try not to make a judgement on them, but if you do, acknowledge it and let it go. More visual people have told me imagining the thoughts as a cloud above you or literally floating away helps.
The goal is to avoid concentration. Relax, and don't concentrate on not concentrating. If you have a thought, relax and let it go. If you find yourself judging those thoughts, let them go too.
Got it. What about concentrating on something that isn't a thought, like your own breathing, or on listening to the ambient noise? If you start to have thoughts, you could concentrate on JUST paying attention to those things, and not thinking about them.
Drifting off is totally normal, and it sounds like you’ve been able to eventually catch yourself as it happens. One thing a lot of people find helpful is creating a cycle of positive reinforcement, and turning that point of realization into an “aha!” moment, where you say “oh good, I noticed I drifted from the meditation object, good job me :)”, even putting on a little smile for yourself even if it feels weird at first. Soon you find yourself having these Aha moments automatically whenever you drift, until eventually you stop drifting completely.
Let yourself make judgements, just let those go too. If you judge the judgements, let that go.
I find this hard too. It’s much easier to let something go if you don’t put pressure on yourself to let it go. My normal state is “Why did I think that? I sure wish I wasn’t thinking it.” Which of course makes it worse. So I focus on not beating myself up basically; I remind myself it’s natural for brains to have thoughts. Look at all those crazy thoughts, aren’t they interesting. No point worrying about them
That's literally what a lot of Eastern meditation is about, and people will devote their entire lives to it
My brain works exactly like this! So as a cope I decided meditation is fake and stopped trying.
if I can offer whats worked for me on the meditating bit, you don't want to fully "blank your mind" of thoughts. You can't train your brain to stop thinking in the same way you can't really train your heart to stop pumping, it's just what it does. Instead, you train your ability to spot intrusive thoughts, to realize "hey, that's a thought my brain just had," and to simply let it go on its way.
Find somewhere comfy to sit and close your eyes. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Focus on the air passing through your nostrils, down into your lungs, and back out. The feeling of your clothes against your skin as you inhale. Your breathing is your anchor. As thoughts intrude and attempt to disrupt you, you simply acknowledge these thoughts as what they are; ideas your brain just haphazardly threw together and served up for you. Let them pass by, and return to your breathing. They might come back, and that's okay. You're floating high up and your thoughts are just clouds passing by; your breathing is the wind passing over you. If your attention slips, just refocus on the physical sensation of the air moving through you. Thoughts are impermanent, fleeting, and undefined; a memory viewed with rose tinted glasses, a dream of success that precludes how to get there, or a fear of failure that presumes other people's intentions. More importantly, they are not an intrinsic part of you, in the sense of the self. They're just ideas in your head. By training yourself to not engage or react with them in a safe and controlled setting, you better equip yourself for dealing with them in new and unfamiliar settings.
Try 5 minutes a day. Set a timer and sit for the whole thing. Don't start over or beat yourself up too bad if you can't keep your head quiet, just acknowledge what made you lose focus and return to your breathing. As you get better at maintaining steady meditation, you can sit for longer and longer. YMMV ofc but I had really negative thoughts and anxieties when I was younger and this is what has worked for me
It takes a lot of work and practice to truly blank your mind through meditation. That's not really the point, at least not when you start out. The first revelation of meditation is that your inner consciousness torrential and busy, so you're doing good! The next step is to acknowledge each little thought and worry, accept it, and move on from it or let it go. Maybe reflect on why it came to your mind.
The goal of mindfulness is not to clear your mind completely empty, but to understand your inner consciousness and using that insight to gain greater emotional control of yourself.
Idk if it is normal, but when we got to test EEGs in physiology lab, my neural activity was much higher when my eyes were closed
Oddly enough, I was just reading a text from an old Buddhist monk (Ajahn Lee) that touches on some of these things. I'll drop a passage that seems relevant to your situation:
When you sit and meditate, even if you don't gain any intuitive insights, make sure at least that you know this much: When the breath comes in, you know. When it goes out, you know. When it's long, you know. When it's short, you know. Whether it's comfortable or uncomfortable, you know. If you can know this much, you're doing fine. As for the various thoughts and concepts (sañña) that come into the mind, brush them away — whether they're good or bad, whether they deal with the past or the future. Don't let them interfere with what you're doing — and don't go chasing after them to straighten them out. When a thought of this sort comes passing in, simply let it go passing on. Keep your awareness, unperturbed, in the present.
The goal isn't to have no thoughts; it's to not get caught up in them. Otherwise you may get carried away to painful memories from the past or drift off into a future that may never occur.
Other people here have mentioned meditation methods but I'd also like to point out that meditation is a skill set. Try not to get too discouraged if it's tough at times; just keep at it and eventually it gets easier. I'm sure at one point in time you had trouble reading and writing English and yet here you are doing both so well that you can communicate effectively with other people. Once you had the basics down it just took practice to get to that level.
I second this, i'd also like to add that you cant really "do" meditation badly, it was described to me like this: when you're sitting and you notice your mind has wandered, that's like doing a rep. A lot of times I would think that noticing I was thinking a lot meant I was bad at meditation because that means I was getting distracted a lot. But that moment when you notice your own thoughts - whatever the content of them may be - that's what meditation is all about. Its definitely something that you get better at with time though so keep at it!
I would say the point of mindfulness and meditation is definitely not about not thinking. The first step to me is awareness and recognition of the present moment, starting with the breath, then moving on to your surroundings, and then observing your thoughts and thought patterns, seeing the impermanence of them, and learning to recognize your almost unconscious reactions to everyday events. There's a good chance it may not even reach that stage though, which is totally fine. even just being present with the breath can be a tranaformatove experience.
I’m like this, but it’s because I have ADHD, so I don’t know what it’s like for normal people when they try to think about nothing. Only time I’m able to clear my mind is when I’m on meds.
Turn off the TV, your laptop and your phone for a couple days if you get the chance (easier said than done, I know). Taking some time so sit with your thoughts can really help quiet them, and this constant stream of information doesn't help.
Why not try the "avatar the last Airbender" simplified chakra meditation and try working through your internal contradictions. That or try to spend time meditating listening to your body and growing conscious of it's movements - from feeling the air of your breath flow through your respiratory system to even feeling the flow of blood in your veins as your heart pumps continual waves through your body.
Dealing with internal contradictions of your psychological self or becoming conscious of your physical self are also valid forms of meditation.
