Comment by suneilp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by suneilp | Hacker News Reader

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When I started meditating more often, I kept getting distracted by miscellaneous thoughts. At first I fought it to get back to the "quiet mind" but that was frustrating. And I would angrily judge myself for the distraction. I got tired of beating myself up and then I recognized that these distractions were the short and long term problems such as conflicts at work within the last few days, or deep seated trauma, like experiencing ongoing racism and violence as a kid during school.

I stopped resisting the distractions and just allowed myself to think about them while at the same time trying to focus on my breath. As the distraction faded my focus on my breath returned.

I've gotten better at this and I feel like I've rewired my mind into being able to maintain a "quiet mind" and self-awareness, at the same as talking to myself either in my mind or out loud. And so when I get anxiety I can stay grounded and now I just think about what is giving me anxiety instead of letting it go or forgetting it. It's helped me to get rid of generalized anxiety that I've been stuck with for a long time.

That is sort of the Zen of meditating, achieving quiet while the brain is still making noise. I have seen it put like this -- the brain and its inner dialogue is a raging river, swim against it and you will drown. Stop resisting, float along the river, relax, and join the river.

That is how intrusive thoughts are, especially when learning to meditate. It is very hard for most people to silence them directly. It seems to work a lot better to acknowledge you had a thought, and return to meditating.

> I stopped resisting the distractions

I echo this and many others here. Fighting back to "cure" yourself is almost always counterproductive and very, very painful. Think long-term instead, and think management; let it happen but guide it with the aim of having ultimate control over it.

Curious, after reaching the point where you had significantly higher level of self-awareness, have you noticed any alterations in the way you talk to yourself internally, i.e. the tone of your inner voice?

That's an interesting question! I've fallen off the meditation/mindfulness wagon and my anxiety-issues have gotten slightly worse (as a result, I think), but while I was meditating regularly and even as a residual effect now, I do notice that my inner voice has changed.

It feels less serious, often even 'funny' or 'silly', I'm quicker to notice when it goes nowhere or drags me down somehow, and ever so slightly better at either guiding it in a different direction or putting a stop to it (and do something useful instead).

Really quite amazing to see how even a little bit of mindfulness caused a noticeable change after at least a decade of fully indulging in that inner voice and taking it too seriously. Good reminder to pick it up again.

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