The practice of undoing

I’ve noticed recently when I share with someone that I teach meditation, they often reply with something along the lines of, "Oh, I’ve tried, but I can't meditate. I think too much."

Now, let me tell you a little something about me.

I

Love

Thinking.

I love the feeling of ideas racing around my mind. I love drafting a to-do list. Thinking about what I might have for dinner. Dreaming up a new project or musing on a new metaphor. I love letting my mind run wild on a morning walk, jumping from words and phrases to fragments of sentences, and whole soliloquies.

And when it comes time for me to sit for my meditation practice, these thoughts don't miraculously cease to exist. They continue. However, I’ve learned through practice how not to get so caught up in the flow of thoughts. You see, mindfulness meditation is not about stopping thinking. You needn’t push thoughts away or try to tamp them down. It's about learning to direct our attention, intentionally to the present moment. To what is here right now. And in turn, allow the thoughts to float more to the periphery of the awareness.

And yet, I understand that while this all sounds simple enough, to sit, to be still, and to be in the present moment can be quite challenging.

It can feel like a chore.

It can feel like a task to complete

It can feel like something we need to do.

But here's the thing.

When you practice mindfulness through meditation.

You don't have to do anything.

You’re able to switch from the familiar, and all too often “doing-mode” and move into a state of being. As many a teacher has shared, we are human beings not human doings after all.

And what’s more, this mode of being vs. doing shows up as different patterns within our brains.

When I notice my mind active and my attention drifting into the realm of thought, I remind myself that this practice is an opportunity to do nothing for a while. To step out of the mode of doing and shift into the experience of being. For that time, you are giving yourself a gift of not having to do anything.

By reframing the practice from something you have to do and check off your list to a making it something you give to yourself.