Quiet Your Mind.

Quiet your mind: Can you quiet your mind during meditation? Does it work every single time? What if you can’t do so?

In this article, I explore my experience with the importance of my chattering mind and how to quiet it during meditation.

My Morning Meditation Routine

Over the past few years, I develop the good habit of meditation. Whether I have only 5 minutes or half of an hour, I meditate before starting my day. The reason for my decision to do so is quite simple. I want to quiet my mind and feel the connection with my inner self. Very often during the day, I run in fight-or-flight mode. So, the morning mediation gives me some peace.

Most of the time, I am able to sit calmly and breathe deeply. I always listen to relaxing music, and even choose tunes of 432Hz or higher. At the end of my mediation session, I feel relaxed and connected to my inner wisdom. All is well in these cases.

It does happen, however, that I have mornings when my mind doesn’t stop talking. I close my eyes and put on the relaxing music, and it’s like a green light for my mind. It starts chatting with a thousand words per minute. There were many times, when I felt frustrated and even belittled myself for not being good enough to meditate. If other people can do it, why can’t I???

Until recently, when I realized why my mind doesn’t stop talking and what to do in these cases.

Why does your mind keep talking?

Before discussing how to fix the problem, let’s take a look at the problem itself.

Over the past few years, I discovered that I have really hard time calming down when I feel strong emotions, there is a chaos around me, and/or when my higher self wants to tell me something.

Strong emotions

Whether I am excited about my day or frustrated about something that happened the day before, my emotions tend to run wild. Happiness or anger, it doesn’t matter. My heart beats faster, my mind spins at a triple rate and my body is restless. In any case, I figured out that I cannot make myself sit down motionless even for a few minutes. In fact, the opposite is true. I want to run around and express my emotions freely, or at least to spend all that energy. Trying to meditate is literary a lost cause.

Chaotic environment

Yes, it happens in my home someone to wake up before me and start running around and creating noise and chaos. It also happens to have a messy home and even messy weather. When chaos is around me, I find it very challenging to find inner peace. Although I do try…

That is of no surprise, as the chaos presents countless stimulants for my senses. And that’s what my mind feeds of. Just knowing that the laundry baskets are full and the fridge is empty is good enough for my mind to go crazy.

A message from my higher self

Sometimes, I feel calm and relaxed. No emotions and no chaos. And yet, my mind keeps talking. What?! How?! That’s really frustrating. I keep taking deep breaths, try to relax, to focus on the music, etc., but nothing seems to work.

These are rare cases, and what I’ve noticed is that rather than bubbling random non-sense, my mind keeps repeating the same short story, idea, sentence. Over and over again, I hear the same thing, like a broken record.

At some point, rather than being annoyed at myself, I started paying closer attention to the message. And that’s when it hit me. Whenever I find myself thinking about the same thing during meditation, it is an important message coming from my inner self. Whether it’s something to be careful about, something to work on, or a limiting belief, I better pay attention and take care of it.

How to Quiet Your Mind during Meditation

Now, that we discovered why our mind is overreacting, let’s take a look at two very simple and yet very useful strategies to deal with it.

Let it be

If it wants to have the mic, let it have it, let it be.

If you mind is determined to talk while you are determined to meditate, let it talk, let it be. In about 90% of the time, this strategy works for me, and here is how.

I always start my meditation by taking three conscious and deep breaths. Most of the time, I feel the quietness right away. When this doesn’t happen, however, I let my mind finishes with its story. It might take a minute or so, it might take a whole 10 minutes. Whatever it wants to say, I let it do it. Often, I listen to the chatter. Sometimes it’s just excitement or frustration that need to be released. In other times, I pay attention to the importance of the message. Regardless, I give it some time to calm down on its own.

Only then, I take three deep breaths again and start my meditation. That’s when I feel love and compassion. I feel good. Instead of shaming myself or feeling bad, I feel good because I allowed myself to be myself. I practice self-love by being my own best friend. Just like I’d let my best friend or a child to vent out and then calm them down, I let my mind do the same.

Try it, and feel the wonder of self-acceptance and self-compassion. Let yourself be yourself. Let your mind be, allow it to be. Once you do so, you’ll have the most beneficial meditation which will highlight your day.

Let it go

In rare cases, the above strategy doesn’t work for me. Whether I don’t have the time or my emotions are too strong, or the chaos is unbearable, not always I can let my mind run the show.

What do I do? Nothing. I let it go. I don’t force myself, I simply get up and start my day without meditating.

Isn’t it a bad thing then? Not at all, especially if it’s not a routine but an exception. Trying to force myself often leads to more frustration and push-back. Accepting what it is and letting it go doesn’t make it worse than that. So, at the end of the story, I am better off.

Perhaps it’s hard for you to understand my point, but over the years, I discovered that forcing never works as intended. Letting it go is the less evil. Usually, when I let go of my unsuccessful attempts to meditate allows me to concentrate on the stressors. As the day progresses, I burn much of my energy which allows me to calm down my mind. When the next morning comes, I am my usual self again.

Just like when you let it be, letting it go is an act of self-acceptance and compassion. It’s ok if you couldn’t meditate today. You are still a good person. You took care of so many important tasks (whether good or not so much). Allowing yourself to run around is accepting yourself for who you are. It’s better than beating yourself up for one or another.

How about you? What do you do to quiet your mind during meditation?