How do I 'quieten' my mind??
 

There are two contrasting ways:

Consider all thoughts to be of equal and no value. If that is the case then none of them deserve any further attention.

Provide a mental focus. This may be the breath, a rosary, a prayer (repeated), an image or mandala for contemplation, walking a labyrinth, walking meditation, learning dance step, exercising until you hit the 'zone', setting yourself a task which will put you under time pressure.

Everyone breathes and what is effective universally applies to everyone, and the breath is not your breath, my breath, Christian breath, Muslim breath and rich and poor breath. It is the air we share.

One need not worry about the LOA and such things that distract the mind into thinking of the future, nor the past, for the focus is directed to the breath occuring in this moment as the air is moving in and the air is moving out.

Just close your eyes and notice the air moving in through the nostrils, and out through the nostrils and focus on the sensations the air causes in the nose, the sensation being the point of attention.

If the mind wanders off just return to noticing the sensation of air passing and remain aware of the sensation.

It may occur that the mind seems to become more agitated but actually it is only that you become more deeply aware of the excess noise, so always return to the sensation of the moving breath.

I suggest a practice time of at least half an hour... but in any situation like waiting for a bus, travelling on a train, waiting in line or any spare moments, become aware of the sensations in your nostrils and remain aware of them.

It's very easy to do and very effective.

Never quieten your mind and this is a delusional idea for by quieting your mind you will stressing out yourself more and more and the only thing you will have to do is letting go of everything. Never take repressing methods and this will only abate your spirit. Smile if you like or cry or shout if you feel better but while your inner self wants to cry your conscious mind tries to suppress and ultimately it creates conflict

mmmm, I think i like Gem's method the best so far.

I find your ideas illuminating. That is how we can tackle our conflicts

When I trained in Transcendental Meditation, the instruction given was "thoughts will come up, just let them flow through and then go back to the mantra ". The Quiet Mind requires time to achieve.

What you are experiencing when you meditate is perfectly normal. Strange flashes of memory, random items, snippets of songs, this mental brick-a-brack always comes floating to the surface when you first start to meditate. In actuality, this stuff is ALWAYS going on in your mind, you just usually aren't aware of it. This is the first step of meditation, becoming aware of the ridiculous amount of mental energy your chatterbox brain wastes.

Quieting this takes practice, and it can be very frustrating at first, I know it was for me when I first started. I'm a musician, and the biggest thing for me was shutting up my personal radio station in my mind. I'd start to meditate and songs would start popping into my head at random. I'd try to shut it out, and then start mentally berating myself when I had problems, which just adds another layer of thought to quiet down. In the beginning, I would actually become horribly angry with myself over it!

What finally got me over the hump was the technique of observing the thoughts. Instead of fighting them and shoving them down and getting all upset over them, I would simply look at each as it occurred. This allowed me to calm my mind, and made it much easier to then release the thought and come back to a point of stillness. There's a great line in the Conversations With God books: What you resist, persists. What you look at, disappears. No place is this more true, at least for me, than in meditation. When you resist the thoughts, you make them more real, but when you just observe them and then release them, they go without a fight.

You also mentioned the "law of attraction", and a meditative mindset is very important if you get into this. The reason so many people have difficulties using the law of attraction is because EVERY thought is creative, not just the conscious ones. So when you send out a thought-wave attempting to draw something to you, all the while having this background static in your mind, your initial thought is interfered with. Every succeeding thought of doubt or distraction just disrupts the creative process even more. It takes focus and dedication to draw things to you, and mental focus is what meditation is all about.

So my advice is this: keep on keeping on. When you meditate and the Chatterbox starts up, just look at the thoughts. Turn them over in you mental hands, let them go, and forgive yourself for having them. If traumatic stuff comes up, ask yourself "what triggered this?" Look to see how your mind is tripping up your creative process, and why. And above all, be kind to yourself. You have a whole world trying to keep you down, don't help it out!

CS

Sense of Humor and artistic expression.

When a person first comes to be seriously interested in meditating for themselves, and their first try seems always a disaster, based on what they believe is what is expected to happen. I've always been enamored of the phrase, "herding cats," so funny~but that's what it feels like when you try to get your thoughts to still themselves and 'be quiet in there'. It's a relief to know that beginners have it all wrong, in that they think it's gonna be easy to do and then to find out it isn't. It's all in the expectations. From now on, just expect your thoughts to be scattered. Hey, isn't it the first time you've actually 'observed' your thoughts? Whoah nellie. The best advice is always let them come and go, until you reach that clearing. Let it happen 'naturally' in other words unforced. It's not a marathon. It's to get one to a certain point and then accustomed to that and then to realize the good, the positive, the benefit of arriving.