Quieting the Chatter

The exercise this week will again be done in conjunction with your changes from the past two weeks, and so will require no additional time commitment on your part. You are now spending 15 minutes a day in silence, during which time you are taking 10 deep cleansing breaths, and then continuing to watch your breath for the rest of the time.

This week, you are going to make another change to this routine that will deepen the experience. As you sit in silence and take deep breaths, you are going to listen for the chatter – those thoughts in our minds that we all have and few of us can control – and you are going to find a way to stop those thoughts. You see, you have not really been sitting in silence for the last two weeks. Most likely, the space around you may have been silent, but the space within you has been filled with chatter – what am I going to make for dinner tonight, I’m hungry, why did I say that to my mother, when am I ever going to lose this weight … on and on incessantly.

This was fine while you were learning the new habit of silence, but now it is time to remove those thoughts and try to find true silence. If you have done any reading on meditation, you may have heard these thoughts referred to as the “monkey brain”. These thoughts are usually nothing important – just constant chatter like that of a monkey.

There are many ways you can handle these random thoughts as they appear, depending upon how your mind works. For some people, a visual picture of removing the thoughts may be required. Placing the thought in a bubble and blowing it away. Wiping it away with an eraser. For others, it may require a mental word – as simple as “Stop!” or “Thinking”, or whatever works for you. Whenever you realize that you are thinking a thought, you will say the word and go back to silence until you realize the next thought has arisen.

Eventually, you will find that you are able to sit silently for 15 minutes, watching your breathing and taking deep cleansing breaths, and having no “monkey brain” thoughts. If you haven’t read about this concept in the past, you may wonder about its significance or usefulness. But this ability to be able to truly quiet your mind is essential for the changes to come.

At the end of this week, once again take a few minutes to make a few notes in your journal abut how these changes have affected your life so far.

Thanks for being here and now.
KT