“Just sit there right now.
Don’t do a thing. Just rest.
For your separation from God
is the hardest work in this world.”
~Hafiz
Do you struggle with thoughts that take you over? Having a hard time finding our way out?
Then let’s get practical with some skillful tools that might help you. Because attachment to thinking is what takes us away from being present in our life here and now.
You may have noticed that thinking has a strong momentum to it. Certain thought patterns have been reinforced for decades, and they cycle around endlessly in our minds. When we take an honest look at these thoughts, we see the truth: they don’t help us feel better or navigate life more intelligently.
In fact, paying attention to them keeps us in our heads and our joy of life out of reach.
It’s a sacred moment of awakening to notice when these thought patterns have taken hold. Because now there’s enough awareness to find freedom from the thinking. It’s a celebration, a “Yes!,” a moment when the veil of thinking softens and we expand into more of our present moment experience. We notice space for new ways to be, new options, and here’s what we might choose…
Stop and Breathe
When you become aware that you’ve been thinking a lot, stop. Take a breath. Feel the breath in your body.
Immediately, your relationship with thinking shifts. You experience more space…more availability to the here and now and not the apparent reality being created in your thoughts.
Shift Attention Away from the Content of Thoughts
Notice that your attention has been involved in the stories your thoughts are telling you. This is what thinking is—being involved with the content of thoughts—churning endlessly in the mind…
Here’s the medicine: shift your attention away from this narrative. Lose interest in what the thoughts are telling you…because they’re not helping you be happy and peaceful.
Instead, take a few conscious breaths and look around you. Use your senses to reconnect with your surroundings, feel your body, and notice the aliveness in you.
Now you’re out of the mental chatter. Even though it may still be going on in the background, you’re back here to the actual, living reality of the moment.
Feel the Sensations in Your Body
Underneath sticky thought patterns are often feelings that haven’t been explored. Stuck in thought, it feels like you’re one big head completely disconnected from your body.
Instead of continuing to think, move your attention into your body to feel the sensations that are present in the moment.
Welcome any tension, contractions, or subtle energies. Create a warm and open space for areas that feel frozen or shut down. Spend a few moments or more just bringing loving awareness to these body experiences.
Unexplored bodily sensations are the fuel for compulsive thinking because they’re interpreted as signs of threat and fear. If you ignore them, the anxious stories will keep running.
As you breathe with physical sensations, you’re uninterested in the content of your thoughts—and you’ll begin to enjoy the peace that’s here now.
Expand into Presence
Being aware is the steady, stable, ever-present silence from which thoughts arise.
You can be aware of things such as thoughts, physical sensations, objects in a room, or other people. And you can rest your attention in the empty open space of being aware, free of all objects.
You might get a taste of the space that is sometimes called thoughtless awareness. Be here as much as you can, in this stillness, and you’ll notice great peace and relaxation.
Be Open to Fresh Options
You don’t need to rely on thinking to live. And if this insight is new to you, you may wonder how you’ll know what to do. Here are some possibilities:
- Trust the truth of the moment and not your thoughts;
- Listen deeply to hear how the moment is calling you;
- Instead of feeling stuck, ask, “What would love do?” or “How does life want to move me right now?”
- Rather than trying to figure things out, rest in a vast field of non-doing. Be alert and receptive to whatever appears.
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Thought patterns are highly conditioned, and will return, so you’re likely to get hooked by them again. Take each moment as an opportunity to untangle your attention from the story line and re-establish yourself in the here and now, free of thoughts.
Peace…the essence of who you are…is right here waiting for you…
Christopher says
This one’s a keeper. Nicely done. I can feel the flow.
Releasing the grip of compulsive thinking and releasing the grip on compulsive thinking is a process that takes time, even as sensitivity to the moment and intuition in the moment blossom over time. It’s a dance of sorts, as space is cleared and time is made to sing our songs and live our lives in relative peace, free of the grip of that dreadful state known as “being mental.”
Gail Brenner says
Yes, and being mental is included in the dance as part of the human experience. The tools are not to get rid of compulsive thinking but to have a different relationship with it – so the space is clear for our songs to come through….at least sometimes.
Christopher says
At least sometimes … this is a qualification worth noting! Also, being vibrational, being emotional, being mental, being physical, being sensuous, being romantic, being erotic, being sensual, being sexual … so many ways of being with which, from which, and through which to dance the dance of life!