Continous stream of thoughts when not in meditation

[Waverider]

Hi, i am new to the forum and this is my first post. I am 38 male. I am meditating regularly for about 20 minutes a day for the last 2 months using headspace. My problem is Negative thoughts. When i was young i faced bullying in school. I repressed my memory for a while but since last 3 years all i can think about is the bad treatment i faced during my teen years. I keep imagining that some one is swearing at me or hitting me. My mind keeps imagining new situations and i am inable to cope with them. None of these situations are real. I faced some bullying but my imagination (thought) is quite extreme. I keep going into past and lose track of what i am doing. I am using breath and inner body energy core as my anchors to the present. Last 2 days have been bad so i thought of sharing with you. I am on eszopiclone 2 mg and mirtazapine 1 tablet each before bed for the last 10 years. Please share some pointers on how to block thoughts when not meditating. Also i want to know if it gets better with time.

[OnAPath]

it will get better when you heal from the trauma. I spent many a year having an entire conversation with myself, berating myself about who said what, and how it could have gone differently had I said X instead of Y, etc.

Try focusing on this when you meditate:

I am having the best conversation I can have, in the moment I am having it. It is neither good nor bad, only my perception of it. With the passage of time, my conversations will flow smoothly and confidently.

[iamthat]

Hi Waverider

Meditation does not automatically bring peace of mind, but it does make us aware of all the dross we carry around with us. It may be that your meditation is bringing these memories to the surface for you to release so you can become free of them. When we release these memories we feel freer and lighter.

It will help if you can learn acceptance of whatever happened. Is there a part of you which resists what you experienced? Does your inner voice say that this shouldn't have happened, that the bullies should not have behaved as they did, that someone should have stepped in to protect you?

If so, then you are carrying around a story of being bullied, and that story is making you suffer. These events happened over 20 years ago but for you it is still present. It may be difficult, but try to let go of this story and all your thoughts about what should or should not have happened.

Meditation is all about acceptance, so if these events occurred in your life then try to accept it while realising that it does not define who you are now.

And also practice forgiveness. Perhaps those bullies were very insecure people who tried to feel better about themselves by picking on you. Perhaps they now feel genuine remorse about whatever they did. So hold them in your heart with loving thoughts of forgiveness.

And also forgive yourself for being bullied, for being fearful and unable to deal effectively with these bullies. Feel compassion for your teenage self who suffered and did not know how to respond.

Because when you forgive then you become free. And you reach a stage where you accept that whatever happened happened. And you might even reach the stage where you realise that nothing happened and there is nothing to forgive.

So blocking these unwanted thoughts may not be the answer. Welcome them and dive into all the associated fears and humiliation and pain. You may find that resisting this suppressed pain actually causes you more problems than re-experiencing it. And then you discover that pain is just an energy, and when you stop resisting that energy it can dissolve. Perhaps you can then throw away your medication.

I wish you well.

Peace.

[Waverider]

Yes i want to let go of the story. I want to forgive. But how?

[wstein]

Originally Posted by Waverider

Please share some pointers on how to block thoughts when not meditating. Also i want to know if it gets better with time.

As logical as it seems, blocking thoughts is not the right approach.

There is a mediation method called watch-your-thought (goes by other names too). Basically you take some time to notice when a thought enters your mind. When you notice one (any time even if not meditating), you label it 'thought'. Do nothing else about it. Go back and wait for the next thought. At first, of course, there will be a constant stream of thoughts. Do not worry about missing some of them. Just keep labeling as many as you can easily. Though it is seems like it would be necessary to 'do' something about the thoughts beyond putting a label on them, this is not the case. Slowly over time the thoughts come less often. They will slow even while you are not 'meditating'. By the time you label about 10,000 thoughts you likely will be experiencing significant gaps between thoughts. With even more practice its possible to seldom have intruding thoughts.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by Waverider

Hi, i am new to the forum and this is my first post. I am 38 male. I am meditating regularly for about 20 minutes a day for the last 2 months using headspace. My problem is Negative thoughts. When i was young i faced bullying in school. I repressed my memory for a while but since last 3 years all i can think about is the bad treatment i faced during my teen years. I keep imagining that some one is swearing at me or hitting me. My mind keeps imagining new situations and i am inable to cope with them. None of these situations are real. I faced some bullying but my imagination (thought) is quite extreme. I keep going into past and lose track of what i am doing. I am using breath and inner body energy core as my anchors to the present.

The breath and body sensation is a good anchor in meditation and I'd keep going with that if I were you. This observation in meditation lets the mind still itself as you just observe without doing anything. When troubled thoughts arise, it's ok to just recognise you wandered off or became overwhelmed by the thoughts and return attention to feeling your breathing again. The arising of past trauma is natural as the surface mind slows down and allows the deeper contents to come up into conscious awareness, and since these are emotional storms, they can be upsetting, frustrating, agitating etc, but even though sometimes it is harder than at other times, you still practice the same - returning each time to the observation of the breathing.

Last 2 days have been bad so i thought of sharing with you. I am on eszopiclone 2 mg and mirtazapine 1 tablet each before bed for the last 10 years. Please share some pointers on how to block thoughts when not meditating. Also i want to know if it gets better with time.

We can create problems for ourselves when we purposely block off thoughts, and you say above that you know these troublesome thoughts are imaginary, so don't make them overly important. It still has to come up and pass in conscious awareness, so let it but don't give it any importance.



Continue as you are, and no matter what the mind/body throws up in thoughts and feelings, calmly return to feeling the breath each time you remember.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Waverider

Yes i want to let go of the story. I want to forgive. But how?

There is value in observing thoughts with detachment but if you are overwhelmed by painful thoughts and painful feelings then you may need some more practical tools to help you.

You may find the following books useful. They offer tools to help us let go of our stories, face uncomfortable emotions, and find true forgiveness.

Loving What Is by Byron Katie.
The Sedona Method by Hale Dwoskin.
The Journey by Brandon Bays.
Ho'oponopono by Ulrich E Dupree.

Ho'oponopono is based on the idea that we are each responsible for all that appears in our lives. So if stressful people or stressful situations come into our lives, then we have to accept that on some level we created them. Using ho'oponopono allows us to forgive others for what they have done, and also to forgive ourselves for whatever we might have done to attract such stress into our lives.

Give the above a go - who knows what might happen.

Peace.

[Waverider]

Thankyou. So the right way is to label the thought by noting teqnique as described in headspace. Like thinking—>unpleasant —>anxiety. You say that if i do that regularly then over time these negative thoughts will stop emanating. How long do you think it will take? Also i realised that i well inside (sometimes neck deep) in the thought before i note. I sometimes start rubbing my fingers in anger when i realise. This has happened in public and it gets an audience sometimes:) I guess i need to be constantly aware/observe in order to catch them early. Being constantly vigilant is a exhaustive/tiring activity. I will try this now.

[Waverider]

So far i have read :
1. A million thoughts by om swami
2. The power of now by eckhart tolle.

I will start on the books recommended by you. I feel that my own actions were responsible for the bullying i faced. I was 100% responsible. I lost my way when i was in 10th grade. Against the advise of my parents i associated with the wrong crowd. Also i used to talk a lot of rubbish. All this was the reason for the bullying. I regret.

[iamthat]

Ah, if only we had known as teenagers the things that we know now. We could have avoided a lot of mistakes. But it is all experience and we learn from these experiences. And from that learning comes wisdom. And when we see others making those same mistakes we feel compassion, because we have been where they are now. This is the journey of life.

Peace.