Okay, what is meditation? There are various types, but a lot are set for clearing what some folks call the "monkey brain".
See, there's you - the observer, the essential Rebecca.
Then, there's your brain. Your brain will fire more or less at random, 'saying' things. This is what those folks call the "monkey brain"; it scrambles about and does amusing things, but it's not you.
Now, one can control the monkey brain, but it's not instinctive. So, the idea is to meditate. Say, focus on your breath. You'll notice the monkey brain - it will probably say something like "okay, focusing on my breath. Ooops! Wait, I'm not supposed to say that. Okay. Mmmmmmmmmm... focusing - DRAT! I'm still *saying* it!"
The goal is not to have l33t m3ditat10n sk1llz, and be able to shut down the monkey brain in an instant. It's to learn a bit about your brain and slowly get an understanding of what's *you* and what's the monkey brain. It's very much an exercise, and it's usually an exercise of muscles that are very week.
And I think this might help in two big ways.
1) You're forcing yourself to stop and sit for a time - maybe just ten minutes - and nothing bad is going to happen.
2) You're learning a bit about how to tell that part of your brain that's panicked because nothing's happening to quiet down for now... and learning a bit about when you're truly concerned, and when it's just the monkey brain making you concerned.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-10-11 07:06 pm (UTC)Okay, what is meditation? There are various types, but a lot are set for clearing what some folks call the "monkey brain".
See, there's you - the observer, the essential Rebecca.
Then, there's your brain. Your brain will fire more or less at random, 'saying' things. This is what those folks call the "monkey brain"; it scrambles about and does amusing things, but it's not you.
Now, one can control the monkey brain, but it's not instinctive. So, the idea is to meditate. Say, focus on your breath. You'll notice the monkey brain - it will probably say something like "okay, focusing on my breath. Ooops! Wait, I'm not supposed to say that. Okay. Mmmmmmmmmm... focusing - DRAT! I'm still *saying* it!"
The goal is not to have l33t m3ditat10n sk1llz, and be able to shut down the monkey brain in an instant. It's to learn a bit about your brain and slowly get an understanding of what's *you* and what's the monkey brain. It's very much an exercise, and it's usually an exercise of muscles that are very week.
And I think this might help in two big ways.
1) You're forcing yourself to stop and sit for a time - maybe just ten minutes - and nothing bad is going to happen.
2) You're learning a bit about how to tell that part of your brain that's panicked because nothing's happening to quiet down for now... and learning a bit about when you're truly concerned, and when it's just the monkey brain making you concerned.