Whenever I tell someone that I teach Mindfulness Meditation, I most frequently hear, “oh, I’ve tried that but I can’t stop thinking” or “that wouldn’t work because I’m constantly thinking”!
In truth, Mindfulness Meditation is not about stopping thoughts. It’s about changing your relationship to your thoughts.
One of the most freeing insights of meditation practice is realizing that the only power thoughts have is the power we give them. -Joseph Goldstein
We need to learn to question our thoughts, to stop reacting to every thought we have as if they are facts or statements of truth. Just because we think someone doesn’t like us or that we can’t handle a given situation or that the worst may happen, doesn’t make it true.
It would be in everyone’s best interest to be aware of our negative self-talk and to understand that we are not our thoughts, but rather that our thought patterns are from an “often subconscious” accumulation of our past experiences with parents, friends and others, from the logic we applied to past emotional events in our lives, from the fears we may have experienced at a given time in our history.
Changing our relationship to are thoughts takes time. It’s more than changing your focus to your breath or to a mantra whenever we experience a circumstance that evokes stress or anxiety. It requires practice. It requires an ability to recognize when a thought stimulates a strong emotional reaction and often becomes a detrimental threat to our total well-being. It’s about awareness and choice…and that’s exactly one of the most beneficial teaching principles behind a daily practice of Mindfulness Meditation.
So, NO….Mindfulness is not going to stop your thoughts from happening, although over time, you may be able to create some “space” or “slowdown” the effects of an incessant “monkey mind.” And there are so many other benefits to be derived from a formal Mindfulness meditation practice.
“Mindfulness meditation practice will help you discern which thoughts support your goals and well-being and which thoughts are destructive or unhealthy and should be discarded.” - — Benjamin W. Decker