SGM August 2016 Weekly Message Three: “Mastering Meditation Step 3: Using Mindfulness to Release Over-Thinking”
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Welcome back to the August 2016 Edition of Spiritual Growth Monthly. I’m Kevin Schoeninger. It’s great to have you with us here at SGM!
In this week’s message, you’ll learn the perils of over-thinking—how it leads to excessive stress, conflict, and frustration—and the simple antidote to release over-thinking and return to calm clarity whenever you need. This antidote is the third step to Mastering Meditation—which is our bigger project this month at SGM.
Do you ever over-think things? Do you get caught up in cycles of negative or fearful thinking that keep you from fully living your life? Does your mind race like a hamster wheel—and you wish you could just step off?
There is a double-edged false truth that traps us in our thoughts. This false truth has created an epidemic of over-thinking. We see this epidemic in action in the current political contests—they are escalating wars of fear-based thoughts that capture our attention, excite, enrage, and stress us out.
The false truth behind this epidemic has two prongs—1) we believe that “our thoughts represent reality,” and, 2) we believe that “we are our thoughts.” Without us being aware of it, these two false truths makes us a slave to the fear-based fabrications of our minds. And, it’s estimated that the average person has between 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts, or mental fabrications, per day.
Could you possibly be defined by all of these thoughts? Is that really who you are? Are you really just that voice in your head, who thinks one thing one moment and a completely different thing the next?
How many of those thoughts are helpful? How many do you really need? How many are even true? The number is probably much less than you might “think.”
Our problems begin when we believe that our thoughts represent reality. If that were the case, of course, thinking would be as important as it seems. It would be how we get in touch with what is real and what is possible in our lives.
Yet, thinking does not, in fact represent reality. Thinking interprets, categorizes, and organizes reality. Thinking is not about representing Reality at all, it is about how we analyze reality and organize it for action. Thinking makes reality into a “To Do List.”
You can recognize this, if you stop and notice what you’re thinking at any given moment—and then ask yourself, what is the purpose of that thought? What are the consequences of thinking that way? What type of action does it inspire?
Without understanding what thinking really is and what it does, you can unwittingly get caught up in over-thinking. And, excessive thinking leads to excessive doing which leads to excessive stress. We become that hamster on the wheel of thought, spinning around until we are exhausted. You’ll see how this all works in a moment.
The bottom line is that the real role of thinking is very important to understand. When we understand the real role of thinking, it empowers us to let go of thoughts that do not serve us or others, choose those that do, and spend more time being present with, paying attention to, appreciating, and enjoying, Reality Itself. This opens the door for more appropriate actions and more compassionate responses to what is Really happening inside and around us.
Our habit of over-thinking is related to the stress response. Let’s see how this works.
The stress response is a natural reaction to a moment when we perceive a threat to well-being or success. The stress response is activated when we perceive that we may not have the resources to handle a threat we are facing. For example, “Here comes a lion, I better run and hide!” That would be an appropriate response to a real danger that is actually happening at that moment.
In today’s society, most of the threats we face are based in our thoughts. We are not usually faced with an actual lion; we are faced with thoughts about scary things that might happen. For example, we imagine we might get cancer, lose our job, be robbed or beat up, our house might burn down, or a terrorist might blow up a building we are in.
If one of these things did actually happen, we would feel an appropriate stress response and mobilize energy to take needed action.
Yet, most of the stress we feel is not from things that are actually happening right now. It’s from our thoughts about what might happen. When we constantly think thoughts about dangerous things that might happen, the same stress response is activated as if there were a real emergency. With all the media coverage of dangers in our world, it’s no wonder if we live in a constant state of thought-based stress.
Over-activation of the stress response has become an epidemic that is woven into almost all aspects of our culture.
In the book, “Meditation: An In-Depth Guide,” authors Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson describe how, “In contemporary society, for many the stress response has become both an addiction and a way of life. An addiction to stimulation, control, struggle, and ‘drama.’ Instead of switching off the stress response, it is indulged to the extent that it becomes a source of energy and hyped-up motivation as well as becoming tied into our sense of personal identity. We overuse it.” (p. 126, MAIG)
How many of us work more than 40 hours a week, as well as taking care of families, taking care of our homes, browsing on the Internet, answering emails, staying on top of social media, as well as engaging in exercise, entertainment, and recreation?
All of this stimulation is truly an addiction. It puts us in a state of constant arousal that taxes our bodies and our minds and leaves us little or no energy in reserve. Yet, there’s even more involved in our stress and the way we think about life.
As Gawler and Bedson tell us:
“The stress response is also often deployed as a defense mechanism aimed at protecting old wounds and insecurities. For others, stress is a form of social conditioning—the drive to achieve, attain, possess and succeed. Apart from acute bouts of stress triggered by the demands of external circumstances, many people suffer from chronic, low-grade stress that is often self-created and self-perpetuating. In many ways, being ‘hyped up’ and constantly busy are glorified attributes in our society, reinforced by packaged and fast foods, sensationalist media, and materialist priorities.” (p.126, MAIG)
It seems that we’ve built a whole society with a mindset that is based on hyper-activating the stress response.
Yet, our bodies and our minds are made for a healthy rhythm between activity and rest, stress and recovery, sympathetic nervous system stimulation and parasympathetic nervous system relaxation. This is the key to healthy optimal functioning and the key to living the lives of peace and purpose we are meant to live. We’ve got to regain our balance.
In this culture of over-thinking, over-doing, and over-stimulation many have realized there has got to be a better way. Many have realized that this is not how life has to be. As a result, many have come to meditation in a quest to rest, rejuvenate, and learn a new way of being.
Because most of us are not accustomed to this new way of being, it is a real learning process. Meditation draws upon inner skills that may have atrophied or simply gone undeveloped in our current ADHD society.
So, in the first two weeks of this month, we explored the first two steps to mastering meditation. It begins with Good Preparation. Creating a sacred space for your practice, making it a part of your daily ritual, sitting in good posture, and adopting a healthy attitude that inspires concentration.
Step Two is learning how to consciously relax your body. We are good at stimulation and hyper-activity, it takes some practice to get good at consciously relaxing at will. In fact, most of us do not realize how much tension we are storing in our bodies or really know the sensation of being truly relaxed. So, in Week Two, we learned a technique of Progressive Muscle Relaxation that helps us release tension and relax deeply.
This week, we take the next step. We learn how to relate to all those thoughts spinning in our heads. We learn how to find some space between our thoughts and eventually settle into a calm, clarity from which we can consciously choose what thoughts we entertain. We learn Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the third step to master your meditation practice.
You’ve heard the word mindfulness, but do you know exactly what it means?
In a nutshell, mindfulness is placing your attention in the present moment, non-judgmentally. It is observing what is happening now, without commenting on it, evaluating it, judging it as good or bad, liking or disliking it, without voting on it, and without telling a story about it. It is just noticing or “witnessing” what is.
The skill of Mindfulness empowers us to let go of our incessant thoughts, insecurities, fears, and judgments, so we can see more clearly and respond appropriately and compassionately to what is actually happening. What a different world we might live in if we all developed this skill! Meditation is a practice that grows Mindfulness.
How does mindfulness relate to meditation?
When you sit in meditation, begin to relax, and focus on your meditation cues, that may feel really good for a few moments. Then, the next moment, you may have a stray thought about something you have to do later or something you wish you hadn’t done in the past. You may have memories come up—pleasant ones or unpleasant ones.
You may experience feelings that seem to come up out of nowhere. You may get a pain in your back or your neck. You may feel bored, restless, or impatient. You may wonder if you are just being lazy, sitting here, doing nothing. After all, you have so many important things to do and never enough time to get them all done!
Because of these experiences, you may find yourself sitting there just thinking, instead of meditating. Thinking is such a default mode for most of us that it naturally kicks in any time we have a spare moment.
All of this may make you concerned that you are not doing meditation right, that you are not cut out for it, or that it’s a waste of time. Wasn’t meditation supposed to relax your body, quiet your mind, and connect you to Spirit? Isn’t it supposed to be some kind of transcendent experience?
This is where the practice of Mindfulness comes in. Mindfulness asks you to simply be present with these different moments in meditation, to recognize and accept them, then let them go, and return to your meditation cues. That’s it. Again and again and again.
What happens as you do that?
The first thing that happens is that you start to become aware of how many thoughts, feelings, and sensations move through you. Thoughts come and go. Feelings come and go. Sensations come and go. You learn to hang onto them less and take them more lightly.
Second, rather than identifying who you are with the fleeting thoughts, feelings, and sensations that move through you, you begin to identify with the deeper Witnessing Presence who is observing all of that.
What if you are like the clear blue sky and your thoughts, feelings, and sensations are like the clouds passing by? Mindfulness is like being that clear, blue sky. It is a vast spacious awareness that arises as you place your attention in the present moment, notice when your mind wanders, and return to your meditation cues.
So, let’s say you have prepared well for your meditation practice, you have relaxed your body, and you have placed your attention on a specific focus in the present moment. Your focal point could be your breathing, energy centers and pathways in your body, or simply being present with what is happening now, inside and around you.
At first, you find yourself interested in following the detailed sensations of your breathing, feeling the energy centers and pathways glowing, or curiously noticing what is happening now.
Then, here comes one of those “distractions.” You get lost in a train of thought. At a certain moment, you “wake up” and notice you “have been gone” for a period of time. You recognize that you have followed some thought, feeling, memory, or sensation and lost track of your meditative cues.
Mindfulness is a practice of being gentle and non-judgmental about this. Rather than thinking that you have gotten “off-track,” what if you understood that this IS the process of meditation, of mindfulness itself?
Mindfulness is noticing where your attention is and consciously placing it. So, when you notice your mind has wandered and bring it back, you haven’t gotten off-track, you’ve just had a moment of practicing Mindfulness. You’ve just developed more Mindfulness.
As you do this again and again, several things begin to happen.
First, you notice when your mind has “wandered” from your focal point sooner.
Second, you are able to let go of anything that pulls at your attention easier and come back to your focal point easier.
Third you are able to stay with your point of focus for more extended periods of time.
Fourth, you are able to witness your thoughts, fears, and stressors, without being so caught up in them or carried away by them. You become able to consciously choose what you focus on and how you relate to it. This is the basis of a powerful meditation practice and a more conscious intentional life!
Finally, through this practice, you develop, or connect with an Inner Witness, a Stable Presence available underneath any and all experiences. This Inner Presence is calm, clear, quiet, and spacious. It is free from attachments and frustrations. It is free from thoughts and, hence, free from stress. It is like the clear blue sky.
We’ll investigate this transcendent layer of your being more in next week’s Mastering Meditation Step Four.
Until next time, practice Mindfulness by consciously placing your attention, gently noticing when you’ve “gone away,” and repeatedly guiding your attention back to focus.
Enjoy your practice!
Kevin