The Greatest Myth About Meditation That Will Drive You Crazy

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It’s become a common conception that during meditation practice you are somehow supposed to “stop thinking.”

False.

The mind is a thinking machine, a problem solver, and it’s a tool just doing what it was brilliantly designed to do. The mind’s only doing its thing so good luck with ever trying to shut it off completely as this may require getting a full lobotomy.

If during meditation your primary focus becomes controlling the mind and preventing its attempts to think, ironically you’ve actually only caused the mind to think even more because now you’ve just given the mind a “problem” it believes it needs to solve. So if what I’ve described is a common, reoccurring dilemma for you, I highly suggest instead of the whole “non-thinking” approach you try something different and that being…allowing the mind to be and just do what it was designed to do.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with thinking and the thoughts you have are not the problem either.

The real issue lies in your inability to choose and believe one thought you have over another. For it’s the thoughts you choose to attach to that become the prominent stories you tell yourself and formulate the belief structures that construct who you think you are, why you feel the way you do, and your general overview on life and how you perceive everything and everyone else in it. And be honest, some of these stories you’ve attached to and sold yourself as true, hands-over-fist, are downright destructive to your well-being more than others.

Meditation’s primary purpose is simply practicing to detach from your thoughts and learning to play the role of the “observer.”

Through observing the mind we are able to see firsthand the stories, methods, and patterns the mind uses to manipulate the perceptions we hold about ourselves, other people, situations, and events. By learning the minds tactics, we can then apply this knowledge outside of meditation and into our daily lives after now clearly being able to differentiate and separate ourselves from the false notion that somehow we are slaves to its neurotic antics.

In other words, meditation is a practice allowing you to become quite skilled in deciphering when it’s just your mind doing its thing, and possibly more importantly, meditation gives you the priceless insight that whatever the mind is doing is “outside of what you are,” and with this knowledge you can quickly detach and release from any story that may cause you pain.

The result is that life gradually becomes far less stressful once you’ve acquired an inept ability to decipher between what was just another story of the mind and what is actual, true reality.

Meditation is the practice of observing your thoughts for the insane comedy show that they can be, then learning not to become emotionally involved and take them so seriously.

There is no “wrong way” to meditate.

Meditation can become a far more relaxing ordeal for you by simply choosing to release control and allowing whatever thoughts, feelings and emotions wanting to bubble to the surface come up without attaching any judgment. Then just as easily as you allowed everything to come up, now allow it to release without feeling the need to apply a meaning or story to any of it.

You just need to chill homie and just learn to let go of whatever came to visit you without a single hitch involved. Because trying to stop thinking during meditation will drive you crazy.

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