Unwanted Thoughts

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One of the most common questions I am asked when teaching meditation is, "how do I get my mind to stop racing?"

I have a racing mind too. I think that is why I am so drawn to meditation. It is the only way I find peace for my busy mind.

In my meditation practice, I haven't been able to stop the thoughts from coming, but I have learned to quickly let them go rather than wrestling with them. I want to share a few of those tricks with you this week.

If you aren't a meditator, this imagery can work for focusing on a project, stopping worried thoughts, and active listening (when you are trying to listen to someone, but random thoughts are distracting you).

Unwanted Thoughts

Do you experience these things? 

  • Trying to sit quietly or meditate and random thoughts shoot through your mind.

  • In the middle of the night, you wake up and have weird, bizarre thoughts racing in your brain.

  • You look at someone you love, you are filled with joy, then suddenly you are afraid something horrible will happen to them.

  • You worry about death or people you love dying.

  • You wonder if you could go crazy at any moment and do something horrible.

  • You question if something is wrong with you because you have these crazy thoughts.

If so, it confirms that you have an imagination.You are human.
Unwanted thoughts are part of being human. We all experience these things. 

You can learn to not become “hooked” or upset by these fleeing thoughts. The more you normalize them and practice letting them go, the more you will gain an inner strength to quickly dismiss them as they arise. 

Here are three ways to let your thoughts exit just as quickly as they arrived:

Clouds - imagine that you place an intrusive thought onto a fluffy white cloud and it drifts gently away out of sight

Clothespins - picture your thought being written on a piece of paper and you clip it to a clothesline that has untimely thoughts lined up waiting to return to them when the time is right, if it ever is.

River - imagine you are standing along a creek or river with a rapid current flowing down stream, place your unwanted thoughts into the stream and allow them to drift away. 

One of my favorite ancient Zen sayings is, “your thoughts may visit, but don’t serve them tea.”

Thoughts are just thoughts. We get to choose which ones we keep and which ones we release. As the observer of your thinking, learn to detach from your thoughts and select only those that are helpful. 

Sending you love,