Quieting The Overthinking Mind

Thoughts are random and messy and need to be collected and shaped in order for them to make sense. Join us on this journey of self-discovery. As you move forward in this practice we will be gathering those thoughts and creating light from darkness and calm from chaos.

Transcript

There was this Indian guru who I loved,

Whose name I'll butcher,

Nisargadatta Maharaj.

He sold little beady cigarettes his whole life on the street for like five cents.

And he went to a guru and his guru gave him one thing to focus on.

He said,

That's all I did for two years,

I focused on one sentence he told me,

And that's how I found my enlightenment.

Sometimes it's just like one thing.

You know,

Just be relentless with one thing.

And for a meditator that one thing might be,

Who am I?

Or what's my truth?

What's the truth?

Why am I here?

What's the nature of reality?

What's inner peace?

What is enlightenment?

What's underneath all this overthinking?

And let's start to build the habit of not thinking together.

So I want you to start to notice that,

Let's call it the gaps between the thoughts.

You might also notice the space around the thoughts.

And no matter how how you're thinking,

You're not thinking about the truth.

You're not thinking about the truth.

And no matter how quote-unquote good or bad the thought is,

No matter how important it tells you it is,

You just watch.

Just notice the gap,

Notice the space.

Our thoughts will always try to seduce us.

But this is important.

No,

But this is important.

As you become aware of these gaps,

I want you to also be aware of your own awareness.

I want you to notice you've got the objects of your awareness,

Which we'll call your thoughts,

And you've got the subject,

Which is your awareness,

Your consciousness.

See if you can just be aware of your awareness.

Let the thoughts almost fade into the background.

Just bring us back to that quote from earlier,

Don't just do something,

Sit there.

The most counterintuitive thing when you face that survival energy of,

I need to fix something,

I have a problem to solve,

I have to accomplish,

I even have to be a good meditator.

See if you can just surrender to not doing any of that.

I want you to be the laziest,

Most relaxed,

Calm person in the world.

And a great analogy for our awareness is a flame,

Like a candle flame.

When it goes out,

It's dark.

And when it's lit,

We can see.

So let yourself just be that flame for a moment.

You are that flame always,

But I want you to just take a moment and be aware of it.

This is the most important thing that exists,

Awareness.

Without it,

There's nothing.

If you get lost in thoughts,

Again,

You just come back to the flame.

If you get lost in thoughts,

Again,

You just come back to the space and the gaps.

And then I want you to notice something pretty special.

That every other person sitting,

Meditating here in this space with us is another candle,

Another flame of awareness.

Every person on Earth,

Every being on Earth,

As is our star,

The sun that heats our planet,

It's nothing but a big flame.

And then the trillions and infinite number of stars in the universe,

All just flames,

All just big candles.

And we think they don't have any awareness,

But my sense is they probably do.

So we've got this universe full of empty space and candles.

That's pretty much all of life.

And so as a human being,

On the inside of you,

You've got this space of light,

On the inside of you,

You've got the same thing.

You've got this deep well of darkness,

Of empty space,

Of unconsciousness.

And you've got this flame in you that's starting to grow,

This awareness that's getting brighter.

And every time you become aware of something in that unconsciousness,

Every time that bubble rises to the surface,

And then you lose yourself to it and you forget you are this beautiful flame connected to infinite flames,

Infinite lights.

And then everything becomes a problem that needs to be solved.

So now in this context,

As you're aware,

Next thought,

The next survival problem that needs to be solved,

Let it arise.

Don't resist it.

Don't fight it.

Shine some awareness onto it.

Just take a look at it neutrally for a moment.

And I want you to notice there's space around this quote-unquote problem.

Notice the space around the problem.

Don't try to solve it.

All I want you to do is give the problem space.

Don't figure it out.

And just let any awareness around it just come up.

You might have some wisdom that just arises as you sit with it.

Make sure you're breathing.

You might notice the tendency and the pull to try to solve.

And when that happens,

I want you to just notice the space.

You might have some kind of awareness like,

Wow,

I've been hard on myself,

Or my real problem is I care too much,

Or it's time to be more honest.

You might just have this kind of deep wisdom rise to the surface.

An answer might flower.

It might not be the ultimate answer,

But it might be your next step.

It'll likely be exactly what you need.

And I want you to see if you can have a real deep sense of self-compassion.

And as you sit here,

Maybe there's a layer or two of energy that just wants to kind of peel off of you.

And as I said in the beginning,

When you feel something,

It's on its way out,

So just let it move.

You might feel something come out of your body,

Out of your head.

Make sure that you're still breathing.

If you trailed off in some way,

Just bring yourself back,

Bring your awareness behind your eyes into the center of your head.

It's very easy to kind of float away,

So if you did that,

Just really anchor yourself into this moment,

Into this body,

Knowing that you can face anything life puts in front of you.

You may not be able to solve everything life puts in front of you,

But internally you can accept the reality that you're in.

I want you to actually have some gratitude for this quote-unquote problem that creates overthinking.

It's very likely helping you deepen.

It's likely helping you mature into the person you're meant to be.

And even if you've made some big mistakes,

Even if you haven't gotten it all right,

You're still starting maybe on a path of shifting,

Or really deep on a path of shifting your energy and awareness.

There's no growth in perfection,

So it's probably going to be a little messy,

And that's okay.

You can kind of give a light bow to whatever this energy is,

This problem,

This overthinking energy.

Honor it.

It's not your enemy.

It's very much your teacher.

Thank it for being here and for teaching you.

And then go ahead,

Take that problem,

Whatever that thought is,

Just put it inside of a beautiful flower.

Just tuck it in the petals in the middle.

And then just go ahead and just send it off into space.

Just send it off into the stars.

Let this energy go.

Great work.

Take a nice big,

Deep breath.

Release.

Relax.

And when you're ready,

You can open your eyes.

Reviews

I’d love to go to Portugal. 10 years of listening to David guide me through daily life and planting trees. Thank you David. 🙏🏼❤️🙏🏼❤️

Find the spaces and the gaps! even if they're tiny 😁

Thank you

I will revisit this meditation.

Wonderful energy shift. Imagery is great. Thank you!

Another wonderful meditation from David💕

A good fit for a Quaker used to silent worship and listening for the spiritual promptings that rise up.

This was wonderful David! Love the candle and the flower at the end! Thank you shall use often! Namaste 🙏

Really brilliant David. Thank you for skill. 🙏

This was a timely choice of a meditation to calm me down. I identified some profundity in it - focusing on the spaces around a frustrating problem I am struggling with, and trusting, mixed in with a little letting go. Excellent help! Thanks...

This meditation is going to be my go to for a time as it settles into my daily awareness. Thank you

I loved this one! It’s very helpful in creating distance from my thoughts and not taking it all to seriously. Thank you! 🙏🏻

Great!

Great meditation !

I responded to the simplicity & pace ….. space to be . Thankyou .

Unreal. Such a contribution. Will listen again and again 🙏

i felt my brain waves transformed. amazing. David, please help me understand what you mean by “space” thanks 🙏

Outstanding. This helps so much and I look forward to listening again🦋 With gratitude :)

Thank you, I am facing some very strong anxiety now and this really helped me to see it from a distance and sit with it.