Awareness of thinking...

[quirky_friend]

I'm struggling with the element of meditation. The element of being aware of my thoughts. Once I get to that point, my brain goes blank...
I'm amused because if I'm focusing on hearing or breathing or my whole body, the thoughts quite happily jump into my head and be intrusive.
Any tips?

[Peter]

I've struggled with this myself. It is probably the most difficult part, but also the most beneficiary (provides a lot of insight).

In my experience it is easiest to do this in small steps. Once you've extensively trained one step, you can (and will automatically) proceed to the next:

1. Train yourself to interrupt the thinking by constantly re-ankering (for instance to the breath)

2. Train yourself to interrupt the thinking, and evaluate what you were thinking about; roughly

3. You'll notice that you will be able to evaluate your interrupted thoughts in more detail automatically if you keep doing step 2

4. You'll also notice that if you keep it up you'll automatically become able to think in awareness. You'll also be able to evaluate the thought, decide if it is something you want to think about. Some thoughts are very unproductive and meaningless; like iterating some mental-scene that might play out in the future. Or mentally playing an event from the past, over and over again, thinking about the things you could have said or have done. In the end it is about just being awere of your thoughts, not controlling them, but sometimes also just letting them go.

I hope this helps!

It would be interesting to hear from others what they experienced regarding this issue.

[JonW]

Mindfulness is not about stopping thinking.
Thoughts are not the problem. How we relate to thoughts can be a problem.
Jon

[Daisy]

From my limited experience I'd say that the word 'intrusion' you use could be the sticky thing. Rather than see thoughts as intrusive, which is judgmental, view them as...well...nothing really. Whatever, as they say. Easier said than done but I guess with practice this relationship with mental events should strengthen. Hope so anyway!!

[Peter]

Mindfulness is not about stopping thinking.
Thoughts are not the problem. How we relate to thoughts can be a problem.
Jon

@JonW
I don't know if you were addressing me, but I certainly didn't mean to say that mindfulness is about stopping thinking. In my experience (and according to a lot of books) the stopping (i.e. interrupting) of thinking is a tool and a first step needed to create some distance between yourself and your thoughts, which is needed to become aware of your thoughts.

Peter

[quirky_friend]

The choice of the word intrusive was deliberate to contrast the ease with which thinking happens when anchoring on breathing compared with the blankness when I'm trying to practice "focusing on thoughts". More the geological term intrusion as in a thing being present rather than a value judgment.
I've had a rough few days emotionally. I'm recognizing I'm being judgmental of my current state as being "unwell" and as a health professional that's got lots of layers of judgment attached.
Still persisting with 30-40 min of formal practice and several "breathing space" during the working day (oh how I dislike open plan offices!). I've not set on one activity I do routinely in a mindful way, but I do check in and do the current activity mindfully several times a day.
With the exercise of noticing positive experiences and recording them, anyone got any good reminders to actually do this?