Meditation and mindfulness are not about turning off your thoughts. Don't use you busy mind as an excuse to quit meditating.

Listen to the podcast:

Or, read the blog:
I admit to a lot of frustration when I first started meditating. I was told to keep my attention on a full breath from beginning to end, but before I was even finished inhaling, my mind wandered. I couldn’t get through a single breath! I’d plan to sit for 15 minutes and give up five minutes in, because I couldn’t make my mind settle down to focus at all.

At the time, I had a friend who’d just finished meditation teacher training. I asked him what I should do and he said, on those days when my mind was racing, I should just give up and try again another day. I am soooo glad I didn’t take his advice! Simply put: He was wrong. Improvement requires regular practice.

See, it turns out calming the mind is not the purpose of meditation. The purpose is to learn to become aware of what is happening right here, right now, without judging it. Your thoughts are just some of those things that are happening. The practice is to see those thoughts without analyzing them, without deciding whether they’re good or bad, whether you like them or not.

So, when you notice a thought has come up, instead of following it, let it go and return your attention to the breath. The thought might pop right back up again. So, again, let it go and return your attention to the breath.

This practice takes patience and kindness toward yourself. On a day when your mind is really busy, you may have to return to the breath many, many, many times. And I’m here to tell you that’s okay. In fact, it’s perfectly normal. It’s so normal that meditators have a name for it: monkey mind. Just imagine your thoughts as a room full of actives monkeys jumping and swinging and screaming. You’re far from the only person who has experienced monkey mind. If you practice regularly, though, your mind will naturally become calmer and meditation will become easier. But even experienced meditators have days where their minds are overactive.

If you think about it, the moment when you notice that your mind has wandered is a moment of pure mindfulness. The practice of returning to the breath is the practice of meditation. Returning to the breath is what we are sitting down to do.

Why would you want to do this? Because through this practice, you will come to see firsthand that you are not your thoughts. You are a person having thoughts. And, if you can see those thoughts as separate from yourself, you can recognize that you have the ability to influence those thoughts.

One day, after you’ve practiced for a while, you’ll find yourself in a bad situation. Maybe a situation where you feel angry or fearful or sad and, without any effort, you’ll find yourself coming back to the present moment, focusing on what’s happening without judging it. I still remember the first time this happened to me and how wonderful it felt. I learned, not through someone telling me, but through personal experience, that I am in control of how I react to the world around me. It’s a powerful thing to learn.

When will it happen for you? It’s different for each person, and it can’t be forced. Just stay with the daily practice and the learning will happen all by itself.

The one thing you must do, however, is be kind to yourself. When your mind wanders, you are not doing anything wrong and you are not bad at meditating. You are a normal human being who is learning something new. Learning takes patience and persistence. That’s all there is to it.
Why don’t you practice with me right now?
The following 10-minute meditation focuses on coming back to the breath.

Do you experience monkey mind? Tell me about it, below.