A Simple Trick To Quieten The Mind

Do you have too many thoughts preventing you from being able to relax and sleep well? Learn this simple trick that takes you beyond your usual habitual patterns of thought. Simple, effective, liberating, and deeply relaxing.

Transcript

So there's two things I like to suggest for this first step of simply being aware of the breath.

The first one is to not concentrate or focus on the breath.

But instead,

See if you can keep your awareness nice and open.

So it's a light,

Open awareness.

And we're not going to try and ignore or block out all the other things that are happening,

As well as the breath.

So I still welcome thoughts and sounds,

Sensations and feelings,

Or the variety of this present moment.

I'm just going to take a bit more interest in my breath for a few moments.

So it's like I'm going to hold or take the breath and place it in the foreground or the centre of my awareness.

But keeping that awareness nice and open and still aware of everything else happening around the breath.

So just in the background.

Let's spend a few moments just allowing the breath to be in the centre,

The foreground of our open awareness.

The second suggestion I'd like to make for this step of being aware of the breath is to really feel the physical sensations of the breath in the body.

So it's not a mental exercise or a concentration exercise,

But really feeling the breath,

Feeling the sensations in the body as you breathe in and out.

So the first step was very simple,

Very easy,

Just being aware of the breath,

Just keeping the breath in the centre of your open awareness.

Still aware of everything else happening around the breath.

And the second step is even easier,

Even more simple.

Don't change the breath in any way.

So don't try and breathe more deeply or more slowly.

Just allow the breath to find its own rhythm,

Its own depth,

Its own speed and its own time.

And just allow the breath in and let go as you breathe out.

So we're receiving the breath,

Not having to make any effort to breathe,

Allowing the breath.

Just to add another dimension to this step of not changing the breath,

This will be useful in the second part of the meditation.

Whilst you're not changing the breath,

Just have in mind the fact that you could be changing the breath.

You have that power,

That ability to very easily at any moment change the breath in any way.

You could hold the breath,

You could take in a deep breath,

So many changes you could make at any moment of the breath that you're going to choose with each breath not to change the breath.

So in this way we're engaging with the breath even though we're not changing it.

So feeling I could change the breath but I'm choosing not to.

So the final step for the breath before we move on to thoughts is to just see if you can bring about a subtle shift in your experience of the breath without changing the breath.

That's to see if you can feel as if your body is being breathed by the breath rather than you or the body are doing the breathing.

So what does it feel like to allow the body to be breathed by the breath?

So the breath is happening to the body,

You're not having to make it happen in any way.

How does that feel?

Okay so we're going to move on now to the next three steps which is to repeat the first three steps but moving from the breath to our own thoughts,

To the experience of thinking rather than breathing.

Usually we're very attached to our thoughts and to the content of our thoughts and we often identify completely with our thoughts.

Hopefully with this practice with the breath we will be able to apply the same principles to our thoughts,

See if we can treat our thoughts just as another experience happening within our awareness just like our breathing.

So the first step for the thoughts is to simply be aware that you are thinking,

Be aware of your thoughts.

And see if you can really feel the difference between how we would normally think,

Where thinking just happens without us necessarily paying any particular attention to it.

Normally we're focused on something else and the thoughts just occur while we're doing whatever we're doing.

So really noticing how it feels to be thinking and at the same time observing,

Watching,

Listening,

Being aware of those thoughts.

It can be quite a different experience and feel a little strange even to begin with.

And as we did with the first step of the breath,

Just holding your thoughts very lightly in the centre or the foreground of your awareness,

Not concentrating or focusing,

Really keeping that awareness nice and light and open.

And still aware of the breath,

The body,

Sounds,

Feelings,

Sensations,

Emotions,

Anything and everything of this present moment still completely welcome within our awareness,

Not blocking out or ignoring anything at all.

We're simply choosing to take a bit more interest at the moment in what it feels like to be aware of our thoughts as we think.

And the second step with the thoughts,

Same as we did for the breath,

Don't try and change your thoughts in any way.

This may be a bit more difficult than it was for the breath,

Especially if we're having any thoughts that we don't like or would rather not have or if the mind's feeling a bit busy.

But the challenge for this step is to not try and change your thoughts in any way at all,

Regardless of what the thoughts are.

It's giving your thoughts complete freedom,

Allowing yourself to think anything at all.

It doesn't matter how positive or negative,

It doesn't matter how fast or slow,

How loud or quiet your thoughts seem,

How crowded or sparse.

Just see if you can step back,

Be aware of the thoughts,

Be interested in how it feels to be aware of your thoughts,

But be completely disinterested in the content of your thoughts.

So what you're thinking is completely irrelevant.

And as we did with the breath,

Just reminding yourself as you're choosing not to change your thoughts,

Not to affect them in any way that you could,

That you have that power,

That ability to make effort to redirect or change or to try and stop some thoughts or try and create other thoughts.

But we're going to consciously choose not to do that.

So we're allowing our thoughts to be just as they are,

Even though we know we could make effort to change them if we wanted.

So just holding your thoughts lightly in the centre of your open awareness,

Still aware of other things happening in the background around the thoughts,

Allowing the thoughts to be just as they are.

And the third step with the thoughts,

Just as we did with the breath,

Is just to have that slight shift in the way you experience your thoughts,

That realisation that your thoughts are just as they are.

As they are happening to you,

Your thoughts just arrive all on their own.

You don't have to make any effort to think,

You don't have to try and think,

You don't have to remember to think,

You don't have to consciously create any thought at all.

So just experiencing the thoughts as they come to you automatically,

Naturally,

Spontaneously,

Just as the breath happens naturally in the body,

Just noticing the thoughts happening naturally in the mind.

Okay,

So the final step before we have a few minutes without commentary to finish is to turn your attention,

Your alertness,

Your interest,

Your welcoming open awareness into a state of mind.

Your welcoming open awareness not towards your current thoughts,

So we're going to be completely disinterested in the current thoughts,

And turn your interest and your alertness to what the next thought might be.

We're not guessing or trying to predict a thought,

But just seeing if we can be so open,

So alert and so welcoming that we notice,

Simply notice the arrival of each new thought.

We're waiting,

Being very open and interested,

Alert,

Conscious and aware,

And simply noticing,

If we can,

The arrival of each thought in the mind,

In the awareness.

Once that thought's there,

Then we're disinterested in what the thought is,

What the content of our thoughts are,

And that thought can do whatever it wants to stay as long as it wants.

So we're going to just keep gently turning our alertness and our interest and our welcoming open awareness towards the next thought,

Seeing if we can notice the arrival of each new thought into the awareness.

I'll leave a few minutes now without commentary before we finish,

Giving you time to experience being alert and waiting for each new thought to arrive into the centre of your light and open awareness,

Allowing everything else just to happen in the back room.

Just every now and again reminding yourself that you're disinterested in your current thoughts,

You're really interested.

In catching the arrival of the next thought,

The new thought.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So just another minute or so,

Keeping your awareness nice and open and light,

Allowing your thoughts to be in the centre of your awareness and everything else just slightly in the background,

Still aware of the present moment.

Let's see if we can catch the arrival of each new thought.

Maybe just come back to the breath for a little while,

Feeling the breath in the body,

Feeling the rise and fall of the breath.

Connecting to the body and the breath.

Reviews

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🙏🏼❤️✨

This meditation has made me feel very relaxed and my self-awareness was light and focussed in the present moment. A good practice to help me sleep as I felt very sleepy indeed! 😴. Thank you Stephen🙏✨