Hi,
I'm Alice Langholt,
And I'd like to invite you to try a new approach to meditation.
This approach actually involves your mind in helping you meditate,
Rather than trying to get your mind to be quiet.
In fact,
Most people struggle with meditation because they say that their mind is too active and they have a hard time quieting it down or ignoring it or distracting themselves from their thoughts.
If you've ever experienced this,
You are definitely not alone.
So I thought,
What about if we put the mind to work to help you meditate?
This is why I think this is a great idea.
See,
Most meditation techniques will train you to distract your thinking mind,
Right?
I mean,
Sure,
You're used to techniques like counting your breaths,
Counting the length of your breath,
Or trying to feel your breath on your upper lip.
Maybe you listen to a guided meditation that's going to tell you to imagine a beautiful scene and all those details in that place.
You might try repeating a mantra or an affirmation.
All of these techniques are ultimately meant to do one thing,
And that is to occupy your mind,
To give it something to do.
And it's supposed to stop the endless chatty narrative that wants to decide,
What's for dinner or what happened last night?
Or what do I have to do later?
These techniques are designed to occupy your mind,
To keep it busy so that you can get a break from all of that chatter and find a space to relax.
Now the problem with all of these techniques most people find when they're trying to learn how to meditate is that they get bored.
They get bored with these distractions and then the mind will go back to its usual habit of finding things to keep itself busy,
Like beating you up for some mistake you think you made or feeling bad about something somebody said or worrying about something that hasn't happened or trying to remember what you need to do and all of a sudden you realize you're thinking and you're not meditating.
Then what happens?
You probably get annoyed with yourself for losing your meditation and either you stop meditating completely or you go back to the beginning,
Feeling kind of disappointed with yourself or maybe shame or even inadequacy.
It's not your fault.
Your mind actually wants to help,
But it needs a focus that will put it to work for you and not give it a meaningless task to distract it while you try not to think.
You're trying to multitask by giving the mind a different job while you try to meditate over here.
That is hard work.
It's also unnecessary.
Here is something else that you can try.
The mind wants to explore.
That's its nature.
It's curious.
It wants to figure something out and it loves a puzzle.
So let's give the mind what it wants.
Let's involve the mind in a curious exploration of the quiet meditative space.
How can I do that,
You ask?
Well I'm happy to tell you.
All you need to do is to ask yourself a question at the beginning of your meditation.
That question is going to make the mind try to figure it out and as it does,
It's actually helping your meditation become deeper.
For instance,
If you ask your mind this question,
What happens if I allow myself to sink into this expansive space?
Now the mind is like,
I don't know.
What happens?
I want to find out.
Suddenly it gets really,
Really quiet up there in your head as your mind tries to find out what happens if I let this quiet expand.
Another question you can ask yourself is,
What will my meditation bring me next?
Now the mind can't be distracted because it'll miss it.
So your mind is going,
Okay,
Let's see.
And it gets really quiet because your mind wants to know what's going to happen.
These are a couple of questions you can try.
If you want more,
I have some free tracks on Insight Timer that are meditations with,
I call these things deepener questions.
The questions will just naturally come into the meditation track,
Which plays really nice music.
And then every now and then,
Every three minute interval or at five minute intervals,
There'll be a new question.
So you can't get bored for very long.
You can get this question and your mind plays with it for a while.
And then right before the point where you might get bored and start thinking about,
You know,
I forgot to buy toothpaste or something.
Here comes another question,
Such as if I allow my attention to dissolve now,
What happens?
See this open ended,
Curious question is what the mind loves.
So I'm going to invite you to give this a try and then let me know how it works for you.
It's a new approach to meditation and I hope that you find it helpful.
Thank you for listening.
