How To Deal With Overthinking: Meditation School Podcast #3

Are you ready to break free of anxiety, ground into a consistent meditation practice, find purpose, and inner-peace? The Meditation School Podcast, hosted by David Gandelman, is full of short, direct strategies, tools, stories, and meditations, to guide you to a deep state of calmness and purpose. Get ready to laugh, let go, and enjoy the process of awakening to your authentic nature, without wasting any time.

Transcript

Have you ever had that experience where you're meditating but you've totally lost yourself in thought?

You forgot you're even meditating and you're just in an argument with somebody or you're totally ruminating about money or a relationship or future plans and then you realize,

Oh crap,

I was meditating.

Let me get back to it.

What was I doing?

Watching my breath?

Saying a mantra?

What was it?

We've all had that experience and we probably will have that experience over and over again.

And even when we're not meditating,

Most of humanity is suffering from an epidemic of overthinking.

And that includes all of our experts,

All the people you see on TV who have five PhDs or have invented things or run governments or corporations or know what the cosmos are made up of or cosmologists or astrobiologists and they could tell you what the particles probably are like on the moons of Jupiter.

But there's one thing they all have trouble with.

They can't stop thinking.

The train has left the station and they don't know how to slow it down.

Right?

Sometimes when we really expand this muscle in our heads called the brain,

It kind of goes on automatic and then we lose control.

I don't think we need to worry about AI taking over.

I think something similar has taken over in our own heads.

Many human beings used to think much less when we lived in caves and we hunted and gathered,

Life was simple.

We spent a lot of our,

All of our time in nature and so nature draws us into the present moment because it's in the present moment.

But what we've done is we've put ourselves in houses and apartment buildings and office spaces inside of structures on top of cement.

We put lights into the sky so we can't see the stars and we completely disconnect from the natural world and we lose our ability to be present and we live a life that's entirely past and future.

And we're like ping pong balls.

We go from the past to the future to the past to the future and the present is like the net.

It's just like we go over it.

We look down at it for a moment and go,

Oh,

There's the present.

We continue on and maybe we're so thirsty for the present moment that we have to do bungee jumping to be present or jump out of a plane or ride in a TV or we get addicted to sex or watching a film that pulls us into the moment.

Whatever it is,

We try to find things that like almost violently pull us into the moment and there's nothing wrong with that.

All of those things are beautiful and fun and exciting,

But you don't want to rely on them to be in the present.

But because you're thinking and overthinking so much,

You need more extreme measures to pull you back into the moment again and again.

Oh,

Thanks,

David.

I feel better now.

So what do we do with all of that overthinking when we meditate?

That's the question for today.

Welcome back to the Meditation School podcast.

Quick side note,

If you need help sleeping,

I also have the grounded sleep podcast.

So if you haven't listened to that before and you want me to bore you to sleep,

You can find it wherever iTunes,

Spotify,

YouTube.

So let's get into this.

How do we turn down the noise in our heads?

Or do we need to turn it down?

Or do we need to just observe it and understand it?

And I think the answer is kind of both.

There are a few different strategies here.

Let's start with not trying to turn it down.

So if your eyes are closed,

You're meditating,

Or maybe right now you're driving or walking,

Whatever it is,

And there's just all these thoughts running through your head,

You're half listening to me,

Half baking a pie,

Whatever it is.

But you can't get your mind to slow down.

But actually you can a little bit just by observing.

So there's actually two things going on here.

There are the thoughts that are going across the screen of your mind's eye.

And then there are the gaps between those thoughts,

Just like there are gaps between words and sentences and paragraphs in a book.

You need a page to put words on.

You need space to put content on.

The same is true for the screen of your mind's eye,

The screen of your mind.

So you're looking,

You have a mind's eye.

When you close your eyes,

So you have two physical eyes to see out,

You have one eye that sees what's going on inside you.

So when we meditate,

We close our physical eyes,

We open our interior eye,

And then we start seeing all these thoughts,

All these memories.

And you're used to paying attention to all the thoughts,

Just like you might be used to paying attention to the clouds when you look up at the sky versus the sky around the clouds.

So what if right now,

Even while I'm talking,

You just notice the gaps in between your own thoughts?

Just like sound has to come out of silence and go back into silence,

Our thoughts come out of nothing and go back to nothing.

They come out of awareness and they go back down into awareness.

But what's always there is awareness.

So your thoughts come out of awareness and go back into awareness.

Maybe you just draw some attention away from the content,

Which I'm sure you're obsessed with just because it's like if you've ever been to the movies and the movie is playing in front of you,

You lose yourself in the story.

And then the movie ends and the lights turn on and you're like,

I have to pee.

And you come back to yourself.

Oh,

Wow,

I lost myself in that film.

That's happening in your own head all the time.

The movies that we watch on Netflix or in the theaters,

That's just an external manifestation that's already going on inside of us.

I'm not surprised at all human beings invented movies.

It's so inside of us.

We just projected it out onto a physical projector.

And then we work to spend money to watch more movies.

I like movies too,

I'm just saying.

They could eat up a lot of our energy and our awareness.

So that's the first step.

Notice the gaps.

Notice the space around your thoughts.

And the next step,

If you do want to pay attention to the content of your thoughts,

Start by noticing the quality of them.

So if you're having a sequence of thoughts ruminating over and over,

That's pulling you in a certain direction,

Before you even go into the story,

Just what's the quality of the thinking?

Let's just note it.

Is it anxious thinking?

Is it stressful thinking?

Is it creative thinking?

Is it obsessed with future thinking?

Is it ruminating on the past?

Does it have a kind of a vibration of regret,

Of sorrow,

Of anger,

Of joy,

Of compulsion?

Is there an addiction energy there?

Just notice the quality of the thoughts that are moving through you.

And just by noticing the quality of the thoughts moving through you,

You start to get a little space from them and you recognize,

I'm having thoughts,

But they aren't me.

I'm not my thoughts.

Now I'm understanding them a little bit deeper.

Let's say I'm having these thoughts that make me feel confused.

Okay.

So there's this quality of confusion.

So let's peel back in another layer here.

Use your thoughts to teach you and to help you grow rather than torture you and to keep you small.

So the feeling of I'm always confused and the thought of it might make me feel small,

Like I'm never making progress.

I'm always confused.

I'm never sure what decision to make.

Everybody else seems so certain in my life.

I taught a class in meditation school on this recently on letting go of confusion and doubt and mastering certainty.

And we went deep into a meditation on this,

But right here,

I also am just inviting you to recognize this kind of energy or any other and see the quality of it and how it affects you and takes you for a ride.

Once you start reconciling that energy and by reconciling,

It just almost starts to process the more you become aware of how it's affecting you and you realize its roots.

It has tentacles like where it came from,

What caused it and what it's teaching you.

When you start to realize all of that in meditation or out of meditation,

It starts losing its gravitational grip on you.

Its gravitational pull.

You realize it's a story playing out on a screen and it doesn't necessarily mean that's who you are.

And you start to learn from it.

All of your thoughts can be the most incredible teachers.

They might be better than any guru you could ever find on any mountain top.

You don't have to go to India like I did.

I ended up coming back to America and going,

I still have to sit and close my eyes anyway,

Although it is a pretty cool place to visit.

And hopefully when this whole pandemic thing is over,

We can go back on another retreat because I had to cancel one that we were taking to Nepal anyway.

So we let our thoughts teach us by recognizing their quality,

Recognizing that energy that's pulling on us.

And just by doing that,

You might notice there's kind of a lower volume of thoughts.

They just start to dissipate a little bit.

One of the things I really like to do is even imagine a volume knob in the back of my head and just kind of lower the volume on that analytical mind on all that excess noise.

Just kind of turn down the unnecessary excess noise and let the thoughts that really matter rise to the top and to the front.

Boom.

Pretty cool.

That's the start.

See if you could just go with that and notice what happens and realize your thoughts aren't here to punish you.

They are here to teach you.

So go sit and meditate when you have time and see what happens.

Thank you so much for being here with me.

I wish you the best.

Keep learning,

Keep growing,

Keep meditating,

And I will see you soon.

Reviews

Love all your meditations and Jerry Seinfeld is MY favorite comedian also!! Even though I know you didn't mention him in this one 😅

This session has created a shift in my thought process and I am excited to practice your advice. I feel a massive awakening within my mind and soul. Thank you 🙏the best 👌

Loved this talk so simple yet so profound … Thank you David 🙏

Thank you for your detailed explanation about thoughts, it was very helpful to me.

As usual, a friendly and useful talk. Thank you. Namaste 🙏🏽

Always a pleasure to listen laugh and learn with David. Ta🙏🏼❤️

💥🎼🌈 i'm just getting 2know you + i allReady Love you! ~ And your knowing giggles🤭 ~ i 1st heard of a "gap" 18yrs ago + literally sitting on the floor , i still remember ROTFLOL 🙃🤣😂🙂 ~ AbSurd riiight? ~ 18yrs later × continuing major + minor W👁W's + NoW hErE , i HeAr YOU , The 1st Teacher🎓 since my 1st + still ~
🌬💥 ~ ThankYou New Teacher🎓
~ You WaY RoCk the 🎁 Presence w/your EnErGy , RhYtHm + easy smile ~ Soul See Y👁U Sooon ~ 🎶🎙 🐈
~ Ciao 4NoW 🌬🙏💜🎶

Enlightening as regards learning from some of our thoughts that are relevant to our learning. Thank you 🙏🏾

I just love this. I have been overthinking the latest days and yesterday I actually thought ”What am I learning?” And this morning I found this talk and got to know I am on the right track. Thank you thank you Thank you David🙏🏼🌱☀️

I Love this! When you spoke of focusing on the space between the thoughts, I felt ......phewwwwwww.
Omg I can take a break from the blizzard in my mind. :)
Thank you. Thanl you.

Peace.

✌

Great insight. Always love your sense of humor too😃🙏💗🙏

David’s gentle humor penetrates the most armored & sophisticated rationalizations... profoundly. Much Love

Your thoughts on how to manage or better understand overthinking are appreciated!

I love the laughter in your teaching. I love to learn from you.

Awesome! Love the bit about the inner eye!

First time I hear your podcast. Your energy is gentle, yet joyfully 😊. So thoughts are our teachers, showing us something about us... interesting perspective. I like it 👍. Thank you 🙏🌟!

Thank you, David. Have a nice day🤗💫

One of the most relevant, powerful, and em-powering meditations, especially for 2020. This is great! With gratitude🦋

Excellent, thank you so much

Really great insight!