Hello and welcome.
Today I want to talk and do a bit of guided meditation around the topic of when your mind keeps racing.
Let's take a moment to arrive.
Relax your shoulders.
Relax your chest.
Take a deep breath in and hold it at the top,
And then release it through your mouth.
Now breathe normally but be conscious of your next few breaths,
The in-breath and the out-breath.
Maybe coming into this your mind was quite busy,
And if it wasn't,
It would be helpful for the purposes of this exercise to think about a time recently or at least in the not too distant past where your mind was really working overtime.
Take a moment and just take note of something that you can use for the purposes of this exercise.
If you need some cues,
Maybe there was a time where your thoughts were moving really quickly and out of control.
Maybe there was a problem that you were trying to solve,
Or a conversation that you kept replaying in your mind,
Or a decision that you were trying really hard to make,
Or a future event that you just couldn't stop thinking about.
If that is or was happening,
There's nothing wrong.
Your mind is not the enemy,
And your thoughts are not the enemy.
Even the racing mind in its own way is trying to take care of you.
It may even be trying to protect you,
Or prepare you,
Or warn you.
Your mind might be organizing things or trying to solve things,
Or it might be trying to keep you from being hurt.
So again,
For the purposes of this exercise,
Instead of fighting our minds,
We're going to practice being with it.
We're not avoiding,
We're not bypassing,
We're not pretending that everything's fine.
We're just going to be here and be with our minds,
Our thoughts,
Feelings,
Perceptions,
Body sensations,
With kindness.
Be with these quotes for a moment.
Eckhart Tolle says,
Let go of excessive thinking and see how everything changes.
And Thich Nhat Hanh says,
When your mind is not calm,
We do not see clearly.
Those quotes from those two amazing teachers feel true,
Don't they?
There's a phrase that's often linked to another teacher,
Alan Watts,
And it's also Zen-inspired,
And the quote is,
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
To me,
That image feels so true when the mind is racing.
Life can become cloudy,
And clarity can be hard to find.
The water,
So to speak,
Inside us gets stirred up,
And we can't see the bottom.
We can't tell what is real and what is fear,
And we can't always tell what needs our attention and what simply needs to just pass through.
And so the invitation is not to force the water to become clear,
The invitation is to stop stirring it,
To sit beside it,
And to let it settle in its own time.
This is a beautiful way to understand mindfulness.
We're not trying to control the mind,
We're not trying to wrestle our thoughts into silence,
We're learning to be present with what is here,
With kindness,
Until something within us begins to settle,
And often when the water settles,
Wisdom rises on its own.
You don't need to push thoughts away,
You don't need to empty your mind.
The goal of mindfulness isn't to stop thinking,
The goal is to become present.
Let's practice it a little bit right now.
Just be present with the next thought that arises in your mind.
Do a quick search and be present with a feeling that's in your body.
Be present with your next breath.
If you can identify and be aware of the part of you that's tired from trying real hard,
Be present with that part of you.
Sometimes we put off peace,
We believe that peace will come in the future when a problem is solved.
But mindfulness offers another possibility.
Peace can begin here,
Not because we have all the answers,
But because we're no longer abandoning ourselves in the search for them.
Buddhism talks about the double arrow and how suffering comes from not only what we feel,
But from the belief that we shouldn't be feeling it.
So today,
Let's practice letting it be here,
That initial feeling without adding onto it or making it worse by self-criticism or wishing it away.
Just be here with whatever's going on in your mind.
Be here with your body.
Do you have some uncertainty in your life,
Some questions that just aren't being answered?
Can you be with the uncertainty?
What's going on right now that is causing suffering?
Let it be held in awareness.
You might also place a hand on your heart or somewhere on your body that feels grounding and gently say,
I am here with you.
Again,
I am here with you.
There's something healing about this simple act,
To stop turning against ourselves and treating our own inner life as a problem.
It's so helpful to become a safe place for ourselves.
Think about the experience of clarity that sometimes comes when we wake up.
You go to bed with a problem.
Maybe even as you go to sleep,
You're turning it over in your mind,
Trying to solve it,
Trying to find the right answer,
And eventually you fall asleep.
And somehow,
During the night,
Something continues to work beneath the surface.
And then morning comes,
And perhaps there's a little more clarity,
Even as you wake up or at least the fog of sleep begins to clear.
The answer just comes to you.
You know the next step.
There's maybe a little more space and a little less panic.
And your mind,
During your sleep,
Has been doing its work.
And this is one of the gifts of rest.
Maybe as I grow older,
I notice this more.
I seem to really tire.
The water gets more muddy throughout the day,
But in the morning,
I seem to have quite a bit of clarity.
And sometimes I'll even wake up with a word of wisdom.
I notice it when I walk,
Too,
Is that eventually the clouds seem to dissipate,
The clouds in my mind,
Switching metaphors,
And some clarity will begin to arise.
Some wisdom will just begin to naturally arise.
And it's so helpful to recognize this and to not get frustrated during those times where the water is muddy.
To switch practices a little bit,
Let's practice a little bit of metta with the racing mind,
Where I'll say a few phrases.
And as I say the phrase,
I'll leave some room and you can repeat it in your own mind.
Just let the phrases gently land.
You're not trying to force a change.
Again,
You're not trying to fix anything.
It's more like you're letting a seed land on the ground and then just letting the nature or letting the process do its work.
So here's some phrases that you can say if you're open to it.
May I be kind to my racing mind.
May I be gentle with my tired body.
May I stop fighting what is.
May I make space for wisdom to emerge.
May I trust that clarity will come in its own time.
One final bit of wisdom is that it might also be a value to notice what your triggers are.
In recovery,
We talk about HALT,
The acronym HALT,
Hungry,
Angry,
Lonely,
Tired.
It's a great way to take a moment and evaluate what's going on.
Why am I so frustrated?
Why is my mind racing?
And just realize that you might be hungry,
Or you might be angry,
Or you might be feeling lonely,
Or you might be feeling tired.
This awareness can be so incredibly helpful.
And to notice isn't judgment,
It's actually care.
It allows you to ask,
What do I need before going over the edge?
And Tara Brach's RAIN,
Recognize,
Allow,
Investigate.
It's the investigation part of her acronym.
And then nurture.
So we take time to investigate.
What's happening here?
Am I hungry?
Am I angry?
Am I lonely?
Am I tired?
And there might be some other things going on as well.
And sometimes if you just slow down again,
Recognize that there's some agitation,
There's some suffering going on,
Allow it.
And then take some time to just investigate a little bit.
Some clarity will come to you.
So as we come near to the end of this reflection,
Let yourself receive this.
You don't have to solve your whole life right now.
You don't have to believe and be taken captive by every thought.
You don't have to wrestle your mind into silence.
You can simply notice.
You can be aware.
Aware.
You can be aware of your breath.
You can place a hand on your heart and feel the warmth going into your chest.
And you can say to yourself,
I am here for you.
I am here.
You don't need to stir up the water.
You can let the water settle.
And when the water settles,
Even a little bit,
Wisdom and wise action,
The next right move has more room to rise.
You can allow a racing mind to just be.
And then as you allow it,
Sprinkle in a little compassion and a smile.
Let's take a cleansing breath.
So take a deep breath in and hold it at the top.
And then let it go through your mouth.
May you be kind to yourself when your mind is busy.
May you remember that thoughts are not enemies.
May you find moments of rest,
Moments of spaciousness,
And moments of calm seeing.
Namaste.
