Hard Time With Mindfulness

[futureMACH]

I started a yoga class a couple months ago. In my 2-hour yoga class, our instructor does about 15 - 20 minutes of meditation. He tells us to "observe and allow" everything around us. He says not to become involved with our thoughts, not to direct our thoughts, but to just observe and allow.

I can't do this! I can't shut my brain off and just "be." I can do it for a few seconds (probably not even a minute), but other things creep in... things I need to do at work tomorrow, thinking about the presentation due next week, even singing song lyrics in my head.

The only way my brain STOPS is to go auto-pilot, but that's not mindful. It is the way I escape from stress - just zone out and attend to nothing or attend very minimally.

Now I'm reading the book "Eating Mindfully." I have a hard time focusing on the book. I read a lot, so this is not normally an issue... but again, to me reading is almost like being on autopilot... not mindful. It's a little book, one that I would normally whip through in 30 - 45 minutes, but I'm trying to think about what I am reading this time, and I am having a terrible time giving my brain time to process the book because it goes on to other things.

Anyone experience this?

[pat5031]

Yes, I hear you! your yoga classes sound great and may be just what many of us need. think it has to do with all the multi-tasking we demand of ourselves.
I still cannot just eat. I have to read the paper or these boards while I am eating.

[SusieQ]

EVERYBODY experiences it! At least as far as meditation goes.

If you focus on the goal of trying to "shut off your mind" at best you will find yourself thinking about how not shut off your mind is!

What most meditations do is just to narrow the field of awareness: either focus on the breath, a mantra, a candle flame, a yoga posture, or idea (the nature of God).

When you meditate, you put your awareness onto your narrowed focus, and when you find yourself straying, drifting, or paying attention to intrusive thoughts, you just gently bring yourself back to awareness of your focus. Without self-criticism or blame or impatience. Just keep returning to the focus. When you do postures, for example, you just focus on your body and on doing the posture correctly, without self-evaluation, just awareness.

The more you do this, the less you fight the drifting, the more you are able to focus, and the deeper you relax into peaceful attention.

I would suggest, during your yoga meditation, that you just focus on your breath. Breathe normally through your nostrils, and feel the air as it enters the nose and leaves it. Stay focused on the sensation at that point, and whenever you drift awway from that awareness, bring your mind back, gently.

I find that just taking one mindful breath helps me past lots of negative emotions. I particularly find it useful when I have to clean the kitchen after making a big meal. I hate that chore. I resent that chore. But when I catch myself tense about it, I just stand there at the sink and breathe a little bit, and the tension leaves me. I often then go on to have my most peaceful moments of the day doing those damned dishes!

Susie

[aruna]

Jen, I totally understand this -- I do the same thing in my yoga class. My instructor says that we should strive to get out of "thinking mind," but that it's inevitable that thoughts interfere. When they do, we are supposed to identify them as thinking mind, and consciously push them out, and refocus on our bodies. I'm getting better at it -- thinking of the breath helps, and if you're in corpse pose, starting with the muscles in your feet, just systematically concentrate on releasing each set of muscles -- feet, ankles, calves, thighs, hips, abs, shoulders, arms, hands, fingers, neck/throat, face, forehead, scalp. Just the sort of mindless turning towards your body tends to keep you from entering "thinking mind" mode.

[wisewoman50]

Like everything else we learn, this takes time and practice. Keep at it, and it will get better. When you are meditating and your mind wanders or starts racing to another topic, breathe and bring it back. Don't fret about it, don't feel guilty about it, and don't try to analize it. Practice really does make it easier.

I think the point about multi-tasking is a good one--we have come to believe that multi-tasking is always a better way to approach anything, but sometimes it isn't. Give it some time, and let yourself be patient as you learn--something else we aren't always encouraged to be.

[Buttonsmom]

My instructor (I studied with a mystic for 10 years) always told us that the object of practice was not to remove thought (that will happen on its own or not at all) but to be aware of distraction and go back to the focus(I still use counting or "in-out" to focus.
I can count on one hand the number of times that thinking stopped in all these years, but I have become less involved with the thoughts (it was amazing how boring my thoughts actually were). And, how I would go from "small problem" to "crisis" in a flash. And it was all in my mind...