So you'd like to try meditation but this whole empty your mind thing,
Whatever that even means,
Just seems impossible.
This requirement to not have any thoughts has put meditation out of your reach.
Fear not,
That's what we're here to talk about.
So in this video we're going to be looking at the concept of monkey mind and figuring out how we can work with our mind,
Not work against it.
Last week we talked about kind of that essence of what meditation is,
That for me it's about being present,
Being in the here and now,
Not in the past,
In the future,
On my phone,
Whatever,
Just being here now.
We're listening,
We're breathing,
We are just,
We're being,
We're not doing.
So when I first started meditation I thought I had to completely empty my mind and I just found it impossible and quite off-putting.
I would sneak look around at the other people in the group and they all looked so serene and entirely devoid of thoughts and for me my mind was racing and it put me off meditation.
It made it really hard to do it.
The term for it is monkey mind.
So if you're thinking about a monkey that jumps from branch to branch and tree to tree,
Our minds are a bit like that,
They jump from thought to thought and idea to idea.
And we're not trying to get rid of the monkey,
The monkey is doing monkey things,
It's being the best monkey it can be.
Your mind is doing mind things,
That's what minds do,
They think thoughts.
So we're not trying to stop that necessarily but what we're trying to do is not follow those thoughts,
Not get totally caught up in them.
So we need to understand and accept that our minds are going to jump around and that's okay,
That doesn't mean we're terrible at meditating or our brains are broken or anything like that,
It just means that's what minds do and we just need to try not to jump with it.
So the way we do this is by using different meditation techniques.
The meditation techniques are an aid to concentration to help us return to where we want to be,
Which is focusing on our breathing or whatever,
Not planning next week's dinner or going over and over that conversation that you just had and you feel a bit embarrassed about.
So four really good meditation techniques for when you're starting out,
I think counting breaths,
We did that last week in the video,
You can go back and have a look at that if you haven't seen it already.
Watching a candle burn I think is quite a nice one,
Particularly if you aren't comfortable with your eyes closed and you want to have something going on but you get too distracted.
You can listen to a guided meditation or some nice meditation music.
I teach on Insight Timer which is an app and a website,
Insighttimer.
Com,
There's loads of meditations there and in lots of places and particularly on YouTube.
And the fourth one I really like doing is chanting a mantra.
So mantra is just a word or a phrase that you repeat over and over and the classic one of course is om.
I quite like chanting out loud but obviously you have to be somewhere where no one's going to hear or judge you for it.
So you can also repeat a phrase quietly in your head,
You don't have to speak it out loud.
So it doesn't really matter which of these things we do,
Just experiment,
Play around,
Figure out what works for you.
The main thing is that it gives you a way to return to this present moment if you're following a thought.
That's why I quite like counting breaths because you can do that anywhere,
You don't need any special equipment,
You don't need a phone,
You don't need a candle,
You don't need anything,
You can just be sitting on the bus and close your eyes and count your breaths,
Feel your body moving as you breathe,
That type of thing,
It's really accessible.
So if you find your thoughts are kind of running away with you or you're getting a bit panicky or something,
If you're able just close your eyes,
Breathe deeply into your belly and count your breaths.
I just do circuits of five,
I find I can lose concentration counting up to ten if I'm really distracted.
You can do that pretty much anywhere as long as you're not driving,
Flying a plane.
So when you're first starting out in meditation I think you spend more time kind of following your thoughts and dragging yourself back than anything else and that's totally okay,
This is a new thing that you're learning and it takes time to learn to change a lifetime's worth of thought patterns.
Remember the loving kindness when you notice that you've wandered off down thought lane,
Just go oh here I go again,
Bring yourself back,
It's okay,
There are no points being handed out,
There's no prizes and when you're starting out if you keep it small,
One to two minutes,
It's much easier I think than trying to overachieve and do an hour to start with,
Or even 10-15 minutes can feel like a really long time especially when you're new.
Okay I hope that was useful,
So just bear in mind if you're reading anything or watching anything about meditation and they talk about stopping thinking or quieting the mind,
That type of thing,
They aren't necessarily literally saying you will have no thoughts,
But it's not being engaged with the thoughts,
That's the goal,
Especially at the beginning.
So I'll see you next week,
We're going to be talking about yoga and do you need to do yoga in order to meditate?
Little tip,
The answer is no you don't,
But we'll dive into all of that next week.
I'll see you then.
