Question regarding noticing

[Ich]

What does noticing one's thoughts mean? For example, I get carried away and then come back to mindfulness. What do I do with that thought? For me it is either ignoring it completely and accepting that I am mindful again or letting it control me. I cannot mindfully see where the thought goes. Perhaps I am misinterpreting the meaning meditation? Could anyone please link me a meditation guide that you've found useful?

Also, because the illusion of the self is strongly connected with mindfulness, at least in my perspective, I sometimes feel like I am suppressing my thoughts. What do I do to stop this?

[Matt Y]

Hi Ich,

Initially, noticing one's thoughts might simply mean that you notice that you have been thinking.

The main intent behind the instruction to notice one's thoughts is to discover that thoughts are discrete mental events. That is, they arise and pass by. Perhaps more importantly, by noticing the temporal nature of one's thoughts one can begin to question whether they are true or not.

Usually, when one is anxious or depressed, it's largely because you believe your thoughts to be truths or facts (rather than passing phenomenon).

There are a number of ways you can become aware of your thoughts. I have written a fairly comprehensive article on this topic which I'll include below. Please excuse it's length, and the fact that it was written primarily for the use of meditation teachers, rather than students.


Working Skillfully with Thoughts

There are numerous ways in which we can relate to our thoughts in meditation. Typically though, thoughts are assumed to be problematic, and we are encouraged to pay them little attention. We’re told to temporarily put them aside, or to let them go and to redirect our attention to the breath whenever we notice them. Alternatively, we may be asked to let them come and go of their own accord, or to witness them as they pass — like clouds in the sky. Rarely, however, are we encouraged to permit them to be an integral part of the meditation process and we’re almost never encouraged to investigate our thinking in depth. And to spend time in meditation “caught-up” or lost in thought is almost always prohibited (as though one could prevent that from happening).

I’d like to suggest that all of these approaches have their pros and cons, and we shouldn’t be too hasty in telling students what they should or shouldn’t be doing with or to their thoughts.

Furthermore, it’s important to realize that there are hundreds of alternative ways of relating to our thoughts, and as teachers I feel it’s our duty to offer our students some of these alternative strategies and choices — and to let them decide for themselves what is helpful and what is not (rather than prohibiting such exploration).

Here then, are a number of ways to invite your students to begin exploring their thoughts; to befriend, welcome, understand and work with them — to learn what actually happens when they get curious about what’s happening in their own minds.

Approach 1 — Content Orientation

By default, our thoughts pass through our minds automatically, compulsively and largely unconsciously. In other words, we’re thinking, but we may not even know it. This is not necessarily problematic (but it can be). Furthermore, just because we are largely unconscious of our thinking, that does not mean we are entirely unconscious of it. By reflecting back, we can pick up certain details.

The first step then, in working with our thoughts, may be to invite students to occasionally reflect back on what they’ve been thinking about. When students are invited to do this, they’ll usually come back with reports of the content of their thoughts: (work, family, relationships). In other words, they will report on what they were thinking about, rather than the nature of the thinking process or the qualities of the thoughts themselves. Nonetheless, this is a good start, and an important first step.

Approach 2 — Process Orientation

Awareness of the thinking processes we’re engaged in is a step up from awareness of the content alone. It’s a more developed form of meta-cognition. However, it need not be complex. We can start by asking students to make some very simple distinctions.

Is your mind busy and active or restful and quiet?
Is your attention drawn primarily to thoughts, or to sensory phenomenon such as sounds or physical sensations?
Are your thoughts about the past, present or future?

We could then encourage students to make some finer distinctions. For example, if thoughts are oriented around the future, what kind of process are you engaged in: planning, rehearsing, dreams, fantasy, worry, concern, catastrophising.

If they are oriented around the past, are you: reflecting, reminiscing, reviewing?

Approach 3 — Effect Orientation

Many people fail to notice how their thinking impacts their body, their breath, their emotions and their mood. Thinking seems confined to the head, disconnected. In this approach then, we invite students to notice whether what they are thinking about effects the way they breathe and what they feel. We could encourage them to notice whether particular thoughts cause contractions in different parts of the body (e.g. the face, the arms, the chest, the legs).

We could also ask whether thoughts trigger an emotional response. Emotional responses can be quite subtle, particularly positive emotional responses, so it may be particularly helpful to invite people to notice if they experienced a sense of gratitude, concern, friendliness, warmth or appreciation; for example, in relation to thoughts about a friend.

Finally, we may enquire about whether it’s possible to feel quite relaxed despite the presence of thoughts.

Approach 4 — Quality Orientation

In this approach we look at some of the qualities of our thoughts which may usually go unnoticed. For example, we can look at:

Volume: Do thoughts seem loud or quiet? Are they traveling alone, or in packs?
Location: Do they seem nearby or far away?
Tone: Do they seem angry, ashamed, commanding, critical, or peaceful, soothing, reassuring?
Impact: Do they demand obedience or action? Are they compelling, or shy and skeptical?
Importance: Do you assume the thoughts to be true? On what basis?
Connections: Do they seem rational, sensible, logical, linear, or fragmented, vague, dreamlike?
Texture: Do your thoughts stick around and hold your attention, like velcro, or slip by like, as though made of teflon?
Familiarity: Are the thoughts normal, mundane, trivial, or are they surprising, insightful, strange. Are they repetitive, looping thoughts, or do they lead somewhere?
Stance: Are you engaged in a dialogue, a conversation, a soliloquy. Are you speaking to someone else, or yourself. Are your thoughts speaking to you? Are you trying to convince someone?

Metaphors can be very useful in exploring these qualities. For example, are thoughts buzzing around like flies at a BBQ. What’s the mental traffic like? (Congested, impatient, peak-hour). If the mind were a zoo, what kind of animals would be occupying the zoo?

Do thoughts have ‘voices’ or personalities. Are there voices you are more and less familiar with?

Give them names if you like. Identify the various characters that visit. Grumpy, Mr Obnoxious, The Worrier, and so on.

Approach 5 — Nature of Thoughts

In this approach we investigate neither the content, the thinking process, nor the effects our thoughts have on how we feel but the very nature of thoughts themselves. This is a kind of reductionist approach; where we endeavor to break thoughts down into their constituent parts. Rather than looking for meaning, we’re just looking at mechanics. We pay attention to the nature of the sensations and experiences that make up thoughts.

Notice how a memory feels different from a discursive thought. How can you make this distinction?

Notice how long a thought lasts. Do they come in different lengths, or sizes?

Notice the volume of the thoughts, both in terms of how many there are moving around at once, and whether they seem loud or quiet.

Do you get a sense that there are thoughts milling about in your subconscious? Can you perceive a thought as it forms, but before it manifests as a thought?

Take a step back and try to figure out how you experience thoughts.

How do you perceive them? As sounds, pictures, movies, voices, feelings, patterns, memories, computations, discussions?

Do they arrive in the mind fully formed; as words, ideas, sentences, paragraphs or arguments? Are they grammatically correct? Who checks the punctuation?

Do you ‘see’ them, or hear them?

Or do they appear as images, photographs, movie clips? Are they a succession of ‘stills’ or moving pictures?

Maybe you experience them as physical sensations? Feelings, movements, remembered sensory experiences?

How would you describe them?

What do they feel like?
Where do they occur?
How big are they?
What do they look, smell, taste, sound like?

What comprises a thought? What makes a thought a thought? Do they have edges or boundaries?

How do you know what a thought is and isn’t. How do you know when a thought starts and ends?

Approach 6 — Relationship Orientation

Of all the approaches listed here, this one is probably the most critical, for it’s the relationship we have with our thoughts, I believe, that has the most significant impact on how we experience and process them. Note that many of these strategies, and particularly this one, apply equally well to emotions, memories, physical sensations, sounds, or indeed, any other aspect of our experience.

Instead of regarding thoughts as something to avoid or fear, we encourage students to regard them as opportunities for insight or friendship.

To start, we might ask our students to notice whether they are resisting thinking about certain things, and to notice when levels of resistance are higher, when they escalate, and when they lessen and diminish. We could also encourage them to consider what they might fear. A common fear is that by allowing thinking to go on the thoughts will spiral out of control and lead to feelings that they’d also prefer to avoid. Can we gently invite students to test this assumption, perhaps suggesting that what has been true for them may not be absolutely true — and that thoughts are often perpetuated because of a resistance to them. We can suggest that there are opportunities, within a meditative context, to explore thoughts in new ways. And we can reassure them by suggesting that you can always direct your attention away from a thought or emotion if it becomes overwhelming.

Some questions to pose:

Are you trying to bury or push away a particular thought? What is it about that thought that seems problematic? Would do you assume about that thought?
If this thought were a friend, would that friend be pleased to see you? Would they feel welcomed, acknowledged, heard?
If this thought were a child, how could it be reassured, soothed, loved.
If your thoughts seem harsh, critical, angry or disappointing, is it still possible to treat them with kindness.

Whether you are caught up in, or detached from your thoughts to some degree is also an interesting area to explore.

Approach 7 — Belief Orientation

By default we believe our thoughts. We tend to assume that because we’ve thought it, it must be true: I’m an idiot, I’m a failure, I stuffed up, This means I’ll lose my job and go to hell!

Beliefs are notoriously sticky. It can be quite hard to change, and somewhat confrontational to challenge someone’s beliefs, but being able to question one’s beliefs is a critical skill when it comes to mental health. Unchallenged beliefs and assumptions can tie us in all kinds of knots and have far reaching consequences. We may not immediately see how a dearly held belief can be the factor underlying significant or continued trauma and difficulty.

A simple strategy to check on the relevance of a thought is to ask people to put their thoughts on one of various scales. For example you could ask:

on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is this thought; from critical, vital (10) to trivial, mundane, irrelevant (1).

Alternatively, you could ask whether a thought is helpful or unhelpful, is it critical or kind.

Approach 8 — Thinking Orientation

You may be aware that whenever you are invited to focus on the breath, you change it, or it changes. It’s very, very difficult, if not impossible, to be aware of the breath, without modifying it in some way. You’ll tend to breathe more deeply and slowly, and you’ll tend to hold the breath a bit.

The same thing will inevitably occur when you are invited to focus on your thoughts. The patterns of thought that arise won’t proceed as they normally would. You’ll cut thoughts off, truncate them, or analyze them in some relatively unusual or contrived way. As such, you’ll be prevented from becoming familiar with the ways in which your mind actually works. You’ll just be learning about how your mind works when you meditate.

Therefore, in this approach you are invited to meditate, perhaps with an intention to let thoughts proceed as they would normally; without being too concerned on whether you have a meditative outcome (i.e. get relaxed, remain aware of your thoughts etc). Instead, you just let your experience unfold spontaneously.

After a set time, however, you finish the meditation and then spend some time trying to recollect what you can of the sitting. What happened? How much time was spent engaged in thinking? Did thoughts continue indefinitely and uninterrupted, or did you find yourself focused on other things? Did you become relaxed?

Approach 9 — Further Orientations

These are not the only orientations one might adopt in exploring thoughts. There are numerous other ways. You might also:

trace thoughts back (to some perceived origin)
watch how thoughts form, link and proliferate
investigate how thinking changes dependent on energy levels, moods and mental states
search for meaning
look for the underlying causes (perhaps an emotion) of your thoughts
contemplate ideas
note or label thoughts
attempt to watch, witness or observe thoughts without interference
analyse thoughts in order to ascertain what they say about you and why they arise
spontaneous inquiry, perhaps involving a reassessment of the ways in which you have been describing your experience during meditation

Exercise — Swimming with Thoughts

Here’s a fun little exercise I sometimes get students to do. It has three parts.

In Part 1 invite students to focus solely on the breath for 10 to 20 minutes. (I’ve done this exercise over just one minute, but feel that the longer duration provides for a greater learning experience). During that time they must continually bring their attention back to the breath. When thoughts arise, they are to refocus as soon as possible on the breath, no excuses! Similarly, if they find themselves focused on anything other than the breath, they should return there pronto. If there’s a fire in the building, if the person next to them goes into an uncontrollable fit — just come back to the breath!

Once they’ve completed this exercise ask them to comment on the experience. Whether they found it easy or difficult, or possible at all. Ask them what their experience was like. Did they enjoy it, or want to stop? Did they discover anything unusual or unexpected? Did the exercise reveal any new insights?

In Part 2, invite students to meditate for 10 to 20 minutes. During that time they must think continuously, without a break. Tell them; If you get distracted by the breath, or your body, or some sound outside — immediately bring your attention back to your thoughts. If you discover a gap between one thought and the next — fill it up, straight away! Don’t stop thinking for even a moment. If necessary, make some thoughts up.

Once they’ve completed this exercise ask them to comment on the experience. Whether they found it easy or difficult, or possible at all. Ask them what they’re experience was like. Did they enjoy it, or want to stop? Did they discover anything unusual or unexpected? Did the exercise reveal any new insights?

In Part 3 allow students to meditate in whatever way they wish. You may precede this meditation with a discussion on the use of attention and our relationship with thoughts. Questions to consider might include:

How do we make wise decisions around how we relate to thoughts?

What qualifies a thought to be an apparently powerful and striking one, and what determines whether a thought is perceived as rather irrelevant, almost neutral?

Do thoughts arise in isolation?

How many different types of thoughts can you identify?

Do you believe your thoughts to be equally true? Are you ever skeptical of the beliefs, assertions, narratives, plans, worries, and demands the mind produces?

On what basis does your relationship with your thoughts change?

What kinds of metaphors do you typically use to describe thinking? Are these metaphors valid? Are they useful?

Thoughts can sometimes appear slippery, vague or teflon-like. At other times they can appear sticky, intrusive, demanding and velcro-like. What causes or conditions contribute to these teflon and velcro-like qualities?

Assumptions

People make all kinds of assumptions about thinking. Perhaps the most common, and one that could be usefully challenged, is that there will be no end to my thoughts.

Meditators often fear losing control. They fear that if they don’t work hard at managing thoughts then they’ll get completely caught up in them and waste or spoil their [meditation / relaxation] time.

For peace to arise one must be free of thought.

Further questions to consider

Are you frustrated that your mind won’t shut up — that you continue to think even when you’ve decided to meditate?

Are these thoughts actually a problem?

Or is it just that you’ve heard that your mind should (or might) go quiet in meditation, that you shouldn’t be thinking — and obviously, (because you are thinking), you’re a failure (at meditation)?

A sense of failure isn’t usually much fun.

But what would happen if you just let yourself think freely for a while — to see if those thoughts continue indefinitely, or not.

Perhaps you start thinking of something else.

Or perhaps your mind drifts into a state of reverie or reflection.

Perhaps you find yourself aware of a sound, or a feeling in the body.

Perhaps you find yourself back with the breath?

Or perhaps you find yourself less embedded in the thought, more aware of the thinking process.

These are all useful distinctions to make.

And of course, you don’t have to act on your thoughts. You don’t even have to believe them to be true.

What happens when you listen intently to your own rambling mind — showing genuine interest in what that voice has to say?

[Gareth]

Fascinating stuff Matt - thank you.

[JonW]

Excellent stuff, Matt. Thank you.
I'd also like to pick up on this remark: "Because the illusion of the self is strongly connected with mindfulness, at least in my perspective, I sometimes feel like I am suppressing my thoughts. What do I do to stop this?"
Here at Everyday Mindfulness, we're talking about the Jon Kabat-Zinn model of mindfulness, that's to say a purely secular model.
The question of the self and the illusion of self is a fascinating subject but doesn't really have a place here. For one thing, it would be too confusing for newcomers. If you want to explore that area I'd highly recommend Stephan Bodian's Beyond Mindfulness. A very wise book.
As to your other point...if you feel you are suppressing your thoughts, simply come back to mindfulness practice. The thought "I'm suppressing my thoughts" is, after all, just another thought.
All best,
Jon

[Matt Y]

Thanks guys.
And yes, the comment on suppression of thoughts is worth noting.
In my opinion, any practice in which you intend to anchor your attention (for example, on the breath, or body) will involve some suppression (or repression) of thoughts.

And to clarify: Suppression is the conscious exclusion of unacceptable desires, thoughts, or memories from the mind. Repression is the unconscious version of the same process.

Even if one isn't deliberately choosing to avoid thoughts whilst practicing meditation or mindfulness, there will be a suppressive effect (to some degree), owing to the intention to anchor one's attention (as this will have the effect of interrupting normal thinking patterns).

The only way around this, is to allow yourself to think freely within meditation practice, without using some kind of anchor to which you habitually return your attention.

Note that I'm not saying that suppression is necessarily bad, nor that you can't focus on the breath or body when you choose, or when your attention is naturally drawn to such experiences.

What I am saying is that a mature meditation / mindfulness practice doesn't require such suppression, or suppressive tactics.

In other words, most people get stuck on continually returning their attention to an anchor, when this may only be required at the very beginning (if at all).

[MiM]

Very thought provoking text, Matt. Thank you!

[Scooter]

Great topic here. I realize that different people focus on different things during meditation but I tend to focus on my breath and then when a sensation or thought comes along then I follow it until it goes away. Once the thought or sensation goes away, I return my attention back to the breath. As I mature my practice, is it worthwhile to stop using the breath as an anchor and just focus on whatever I'm feeling?

[JonW]

"As I mature my practice, is it worthwhile to stop using the breath as an anchor and just focus on whatever I'm feeling?"

Great question. As one's practice matures, it's good to remember that the breath is always there for you as an anchor and not just during formal meditation . But it's not the only anchor you can use. My meditation tends to involve what Kabat-Zinn calls "choiceless awareness". That's to say, I tend to meditate on whatever arises.
Here's a good Kabat-Zinn guided meditation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdiumEM5A38
Cheers,
Jon

[Matt Y]

As I mature my practice, is it worthwhile to stop using the breath as an anchor and just focus on whatever I'm feeling?

Great question Scooter.

My view is that you don't need to stop using the breath as an anchor; but you might consider using it as a rudder or keel. In other words, you can return to the breath when the seas are getting too rough or the currents seem dangerous (beyond your current capacity to navigate safely).

Perhaps you'll also find that at times your attention comes to rest naturally on the breath or body. In this case you are not so much anchoring your attention on the breath (or trying to hold it there), but just allowing it to rest there. If I were to continue the above analogy you might say that you just allow yourself to float; drifting comfortably around as the currents and winds dictate, enjoying the passing scenery without having to drop anchor.

[JonW]

"My view is that you don't need to stop using the breath as an anchor; but you might consider using it as a rudder or keel. In other words, you can return to the breath when the seas are getting too rough or the currents seem dangerous (beyond your current capacity to navigate safely)."

Beautifully put, sir. That's one for my notebook.
Cheers,
Jon