Watching your thoughts

[Annette]

Can anyone explain how you're supposed to watch your thoughts go by (rather than try to repress them)?

If I'm thinking the thought, then I can't simultaneously be watching it. And once I've caught my mind wandering like this, I can't watch the thought because I'm no longer thinking it. All I seem able to do is to gently stop the thought and go back to watching the breath.

Metaphors like watching thoughts as if they're flowing past in a river, or going past like cars observed from the side of a motorway don't seem do-able to me.

[JonW]

Hi Annette.
Speaking personally, being able to observe my thoughts came with practice, while I was following the 8-Week course. As I developed some kind of inner peace, so too did I seem to develop an observer self that was able to watch thoughts and feelings as they arose.
It's quite a difficult thing to verbalise and I'm making a lousy job of it.
Here's an article that might be helpful.
http://serenityonlinetherapy.com/mindfulness.htm
I'd also recommend any books by Mark Williams and Jon Kabat-Zinn.
Welcome to the community btw.
All best, Jon

[FeeHutch]

It is a hard thing to try and explain I agree.
What really really helped me was to visualise my thoughts like clouds in the sky, I am aware they are there but I'm not getting swallowed up by any one cloud.

[JonW]

Visualisation can be a big help.
When I'm dealing with particularly difficult thoughts, I try thinking of them as vaporous rather than solid. And they're more likely to float off. If they seem solid, it gives the mind more to chew on. Given half a chance the mind will go at them like Banjo tucking into a lamb chop. He does love a chop, Banjo.

[Hambostein]

This is a bit of synchronicity, at last Wednesdays Meditation session the Tutor was trying to explain this concept....

How he put it, is that you are sitting there "Fishing" for your thoughts, waiting for a thought, then "catching" the thought, then releasing it watch it as it drifts away again, I thought it was a well strange concept at first and felt the same as Annette that watching and thinking the thought would be totally seperate concepts.
But strangely enough, with practicing following the Meditation session I can seem to do this.

But it is a hard concept to put into words, and the only advise I can give is practice this, I have found it quite enjoyable.

And strangely enough when I have been Meditating "Fishing" for a thought, nothing seems to come for what seems like ages at times, and then I start thinking to myself "I wish a thought would come along soon"

and then I realise that I've suddenly caught a thought !

[JonW]

I used to do a lot of fishing for thoughts but I've been trying to scale it down recently.
I'll stop carping on for now as I appear to be floundering. I wouldn't wish to be caught between a rock and a hard plaice. Give me some time to mullet over.

[Cheesus]

I used to do a lot of fishing for thoughts but I've been trying to scale it down recently.
I'll stop carping on for now as I appear to be floundering. I wouldn't wish to be caught between a rock and a hard plaice. Give me some time to mullet over.

Dear Cod! I can't believe what I'm herring here. It was shellfish of you to take all of the common fish. It's made me feel a bit crabby.

[Annette]

Thank you for your comments. I don't have any trouble visualising things, for example thoughts. But it seems to me that if I visualise a thought drifting away, I can only do that once I've stopped thinking it, and in visualising it, I'm actually hanging on to the idea of the thought for a little while longer. I'd probably be better simply returning my attention to the breath, which is what I tend to do.

JonW, thank you, yes I've read Mark Williams' book, and a couple by Jon Kabat Zinn. They're both excellent, and I particularly like them because they're secular. I have books by Buddhist authors which I've found useful too, but they sometimes introduce ideas I don't believe in.

[JonW]

Heh. Thanks for entering into the spirit of things, Cheesus.
Hi Annette. Have you read Jac O'Keefe? Wonderfully succinct writer. "Born To Be Free" is an exceptional work.

[Vonnie55]

I struggled with this too. I find the blue sky technique works really well. Imagine the blue sky is the state of mindfulness, the white clouds are happy thoughts and dark clouds are bad thoughts. Whenever I had thoughts I don't want or I'm trying to clear my head I imagine the wind blowing away the clouds (thoughts) and then I'm left only with the blue sky and a clear(er) mind.

The other method I used is to imagine I'm stood at the side of a busy road where the cars driving past are my thoughts. When your mind is really busy it's like a busy road, and sometimes when you have things to do but your mind is so busy it's like you're trying to get to the other side of the road but the 'cars' are obstructing your path. If you imagine you are sitting by the side of the road and you let the cars drive by then I find I can slowly reduce the number of cars going past and the road (in other words my mind) is clearer and more settled.

I don't know if these will work for you but i find it gives me a bit of focus that stops me trying to push the thoughts out of my head and also it helps me relax and slow down. Imagining the clouds or cars might help you stop thinking about the details of the thought itself because you aren't imagining the thought but you're seeing it as a object. This helps distract me from the content of the thought itself.

There's a book called 'getting some headspace' that gives you ideas about different techniques that I found was really good.