Distraction

Meditators often think of distracting thoughts as obstacles to be avoided at all costs, but understanding and accepting your own mind—sensations, feelings & thoughts—is key to self-reliance and peace.

Transcript

Hello, And welcome to mindfulness live. This week, We're talking about distraction. And the word distraction immediately makes us think of something outside of ourselves, Something which pulls our attention away. But there's another form of distraction, There's another source of distraction from inside. And it's really the most important because that's the one that we can actually do something about. And it's not just a matter of losing your attention. These sorts of distractions are rooted in self limiting beliefs. I had a long conversation with Caroline this morning about this, And she clarified a lot of stuff for me. So self limiting beliefs, We're going to be looking at that today. But first, Make yourselves comfortable. Take a nice breath. And let go. And take the time to feel the air coming in and leaving. This is your interaction with the world outside. Inhaling the air and exhaling the waste. And the breath comes and goes. And with each in breath, You bring in fresh energy. Imagine that energy filling your body, Refreshing your mind, Clarifying your thoughts and your feelings and your sensations. So each in breath brings clarity. And when you see clearly, Then you can begin your housekeeping, Sweeping out all the old dusty, Rubbishy bits and pieces, Lingering thoughts and self limiting beliefs that stubbornly plague you. So with the in breath comes clarity. With the out breath goes all that baggage. And in this way, The breath refreshes you and strengthens you and relaxes you. Simple process. It's easy to forget. But when you remember, It's very simple and very effective. Breathe in clarity. Breathe out waste. Breathing out all those automatic thoughts and impressions and judgments and biases. Just letting them go. Breathing in a fresh, Clear air of clarity. And focusing on the breath, On the sensation of the breath, The movement of your chest and throat, The movement of your whole body, Trusting and adapting as you breathe. And the breath is like your motor, Which must keep running. So you want it running smoothly. And the best way is to pay attention, To know the breath, To feel the breath and to use the breath to clarify your mind. And breath comes and goes. The clarity comes and the confusion goes. You simplify. You're here and now. You're breathing. And now taking three more breaths. Open your eyes. Self-limiting beliefs are very simple. That's the point. We learn them at a very young age when all we can really grasp is simple stuff. So when I make a lovely drawing and I show it to my father and my father doesn't even look at it or he looks at it and gives me a smile, Which is just cursory, Polite, Not involved, Then I know immediately that that painting is no good and my father doesn't approve of me. And that's a big piece of very simple knowledge, But it's still very big. And that's impressed on me because I'm so young and my mind is so empty of other things that this one event is big and I don't have any counter arguments. I don't have any belief in myself to fall back on. All I have to fall back on is the reflection of other people outside of me. So I get this message and I internalized it. And that's that. That becomes a self-limiting belief. And it can be about your worth. It can be about your ability. It can be about anything really. And it's about you and who you are. And it's negative. You see, Self-affirming beliefs. Well, We get those as well. You know, I show that painting to my mother and she claps her hands and she tells me how clever I am and what a wonderful picture it is. And I get another message. Which is an affirming belief, Which is good, But it doesn't cancel out the self-limiting belief. The two can coexist. And in fact, They do. But with a certain problematic side to it, Which is that we tend to remember and hold on to the negative much more strongly than we hold on to the positive. It's part of the survival mechanism, Apparently. We're more acutely aware of danger than we are of advantage. Let's say danger is more important. We have to keep our eye on it. So these are the self-limiting beliefs. And what happens is that, You know, I'm sitting and meditating and I'm just no good at this. That's a common judgment that people make about it. I'm no good at this. Right now, As I'm trying to concentrate by myself in this room without a guide, You know, It's much harder without a guide, Right? Then you might just say that, Oh, I'm no good at this. What is what you could be saying is, I'm no good at this now, At this moment. But no, I'm no good at this. We take it personally, Lock, Stock and barrel. We take the whole thing onto us and I'm no good. So that is a distraction, To say the least. It literally it doesn't just pull you away from your meditation. It threatens to stop you meditating at all, Because you've made this judgment that you can't do it, That you need to be something that you're not. So there are all sorts of beliefs in here, The belief that you're no good, But also the belief that you need to be a certain way. These are all very, Very, Very limiting. I mean, Imagine if you get rid of those thoughts, If those thoughts weren't there, What would you be doing? You'd be using the full force and worth of your mind, Just as it is, Just the way God intended, As they say, Right? But no, We keep interfering. We keep distracting ourselves with our own internal dialogue. And that internal dialogue is nothing to be ashamed of. It's necessary. It's part of what it is to be human and to have a human mind. But it needs housekeeping, Needs looking after. So these distractions, Let's call them that, Which normally go unnoticed during the course of the day, You know, I present a report to a client and the client looks at me like, Are you serious? And I realized that that report's not good enough. That's one thing, But I just buy into it. It's just, I don't have time to look at it, To correct it, To think of it in terms of, Well, You know, Is that me projecting? I'm too busy dealing with the client. But when we're in meditation, When I'm sitting here and I'm trying to meditate and the thought comes up, My eyes is no good. Now I actually do have the space and time to deal with it. So that's why distraction is not really an obstacle to your meditation. On the contrary, It's the whole point. You're looking for these sorts of distractions. You're trying to dig them up. You want to be aware of them. This is the gold of mindfulness meditation. Bring up all this crap. The crap is the gold. Because when you see it and you see it, Not just in the abstract, That you see it in that space where you have that conscious attention, Where you are that awake and you have that much space to be able to actually say, Oh, That's very interesting. Look at that. That's very familiar. Yeah, I know that thought. Now you're in a position to do something about it. So this is the reason why we want to do a little bit of formal meditation. And I always say that the real thing happens, Real mindfulness happens out there in the world. But you can't just be out there in the world and be dealing with yourself limiting beliefs while you're busy because they're so confusing and they affect the way that you actually do your work or do your relationships with friends and family and enemies and anybody. So we need this combination of a few minutes of quiet by ourselves each day where we have the space and then bringing that attention out into the world. So we're not just on, You know, On automaticity all day long, But there are moments and periods of consciousness, Particularly we want them to appear when those self-limiting beliefs arise. So in meditation distraction, This sort of distraction can be a good thing. It depends on how you deal with it. It depends on if you might just fall for it. You might just say, Yeah, I'm not good at this. And that's it. You may quit meditation, But you're not going to because you're you, You're committed. You're here with mindfulness live. You've chosen to commit to it. And so you stick and that's what it's all about. That's what the commitment is about is staying on your seat when it feels like a complete waste of time. And there are many voices and there are other, You know, Self-limiting beliefs, Which will tell you this is a complete waste of time. What sort of person I use, You know, Steven, You spend eight years in a monastery, You spend the rest of your life sitting on your bum, Meditating. How useless is that? Okay. That's the thought that comes up. Sometimes I don't give it very much power at all, But I know the world out there does. And that's why the thought keeps recurring. It sort of reflected up that world out there. And I'm aware that for so many people, This is a waste of time and I should be getting on with my life and doing what everyone else does, Making money and consuming. However, I am committed to this and I know I can review that and I can look back and I can say, Well, I had a lot more self-limiting beliefs in this and I've overcome some of them, Maybe not all the time, But a lot of the time. They come and go, You know, They're not those things that we learn as children, They stick around. That's not the question. We're not trying to destroy that particular thought. You're trying to come to a new relationship with that thought, Which is instead of believing it, You just believe it. It's still there, But you choose to disbelieve it. In fact, You remind yourself, Wait a minute, I don't believe that crap. And then you've got the benefit of all your meditation behind you and you can start to deal with it, Or you can continue to deal with it with a little more force each time, With a little more belief. So at the same time as you're dealing with these self-limiting beliefs, You're actually creating more belief in yourself, In your abilities. You're not creating it, You're discovering it. You're discovering, Wow, I can let go. I don't have to live with this stuff. I thought it was me. No, It's not. It's just a thought. That's the beauty of it. It's just a thought. And nothing, Nothing is more flimsy than a thought. The problem is not the thought, The problem is the habit. And the problem is the believing. We believe in the self-limiting idea. I'm not good enough. I'm stupid. I'm antisocial. I'm whatever I am. I'm not good looking enough. I'm too old and too young. There's so many ways in which we can opt out. So it's not just a matter of regurgitating what someone else has taught us. We also take advantage of those self-limiting beliefs to procrastinate, To avoid certain situations which would be better if we went in consciously, But which require a certain amount of work and effort that we don't want to do. So there's many ways in which understanding those self-limiting beliefs can really wake you up and change the way that you react and change the way you see yourself and stop you taking all this stuff so personally. So let's take a few minutes and see if we can get distracted again. So make yourselves comfortable. Take a nice breath and let go. And all you have to do is watch the breath come and go. But you will do much more. Your mind continues, Throws up ideas, Those thoughts, Hesitations, Doubts, Makes you feel uncomfortable, Squeamish, Questioning yourself. So don't be afraid of this. This is not stopping you. This is the meat of meditation. But in order to see that, You have to have a stable basis and that is your breath. You tie your attention to the breath so that when you lose your attention, You're aware of it. And as soon as you know it, You return to the breath. And you might tell yourself, Oh, I'm thinking that I'm no good at this. I'm thinking I'm not a good meditator, Not a good person. And that's all. You just name that thought and return to the breath. And you know that the breath comes in and you know the breath as it goes out. Feeling the breath in your body and knowing that your body reflects your moves. You feel the breath in a curious way, Sensing it out. The breath is relaxed. My breath is tense. My breath is uneven. My breath is smooth and comfortable and perfectly relaxing. All the above, All possible. But what do you actually feel? What of this moment? Breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in clarity and breathing out waste. Breathing in attention, Awareness and looking out for distractions, For thoughts, For self-limiting beliefs. And allowing yourself not to struggle, Not to fight, Not to complain, Not to quit, Just to be, To accept this moment, This feeling and these thoughts. Even self-limiting thoughts, You accept them. You don't believe them, But you accept that they're there. You know they're there. You become familiar with them. You watch out for them. They have nowhere to hide, But they continue to exist and you continue to watch, To know how you feel, To know what your thoughts are like. And in the clarity of your meditation, To know what you can believe and what you can't. One thing's for sure, You can't believe all that you think. And now taking three more breaths, Open your eyes.