Making friends with your monkey mind

  • Making friends with your monkey mind

… While driving on Sunday to our family Sunday lunch I shared that with my husband that I was preparing earlier for the Mindfulness of thoughts meditation I was about to guide on Monday. He first asked me but how does that go together meditation Mindfulness of thoughts? Isn’t meditation supposed to be about quieting and being without thoughts?

I was so happy he asked that and offer me an opportunity to practice the answer to that question which is so frequent for all people who are starting with meditation.

So when we do a formal sitting meditation, we let go of the expectation that there will be no thoughts. Our mind secrets thoughts. To have the expectation that it just quiets down is a bit far reached. When we start with the breath, we can be with a breath for a while, feel the body, and after a while there the thoughts start appearing. In our daily lives people often without realizing just get lost in thoughts or follow a stream of thoughts that Is actually not serving them.

In the mindfulness of thoughts practice we practice becoming aware that we are thinking, naming our thoughts, not pushing them away, maybe with some thoughts staying and feeling into the underlying feeling tone, without getting lost in the depth of that thought. What we do, is befriending our thought.  When we allow it to sit right there, as it is, without going further into planning, or making scenarios, or getting lost in memory, we notice the stillness and spaciousness within. This way we just made friend with our monkey mind and that is a gateway to more peace within.

If you want to work deeper with thoughts – those thoughts that you would define as judgement or belief, i would encourage to journal them and use your writing as an anchor to really work with them. Byron Katie in her book for example states the following:

“Once the mind is stopped on paper, thoughts remain stable, and inquiry can easily be applied. Avoid
the temptation to continue without writing down your judgments. If you
try to do The Work in your head, without putting your thoughts on paper,
the mind will outsmart you.” (from “Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life” by Byron Katie, Stephen Mitchell)

 

What would bring more peace to me right now?

  • What would bring more peace to me right now?

Living in the moment, Jason Mraz

I was in meditation the other day on the theme of peace and I inquired what would bring more peace to me right now…

Because of focusing on forgiveness this month with mindfulness meditation teacher trainer, one part of getting and insight into peace was through the process of forgiveness.

 

Forgiving myself for how I have hurt myself and bring hurt to others,

Forgiving others how they hurt me.

 

Accepting that it is part of human that we knowingly or unknowingly hurt eachother or have done so in the past.

 

Being patient with myself because forgiveness takes time and needs deep healing.

 

Finding peace in the moment, true peace, without spiritual bypass, requires sitting with all that is. Tending to our emotions and feelings, thoughts (I would use RAIN for that practice)

 

We can find that feeling of peace whenever we take a moment and intentionally get in touch with all in us.

 

We cannot attain a feeling of peace in moments of depletion. Lama Rod Owens says in relation to forgiveness: we need to be grounded, have a feeling of being supported, a feeling of being connected to a community, then we have healed enough to start forgiving to others. Adding to this we also need to understand the common humanity in all of us.  Then there we can have reach a place of more peace within us.

My choice of song for this month.. connected to mindfulness of thoughts and topic of forgiveness is Living in the moment by Jason Mraz. 

“I’m letting myself off the hook for things I’ve doneI let my past go pastAnd now I’m having more funI’m letting go of the thoughtsThat do not make me strongAnd I believe this way can be the same for everyone”