Monthly Archives: April 2014

We’ve reached the third and final instalment of the “How to be Mindful of Thoughts” series.

In part 1, I showed you how to work with thoughts by simply observing them as mental objects, without getting sucked into their content. In treat them as what they are: just mental objects that can be observed. Then in part 2 I gave you some strategies for handling emotionally charged thoughts, without getting overwhelmed by them.

Now it’s time to go deeper and get at the moods or mental states that underly our thoughts, so we can begin to deal with those pesky repetitive thoughts that keep bugging us, or the ones that compel us to react to their content in ways we later regret. This is where mindfulness really saves the day!

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In part 1 of this series on How to be Mindful of Thoughts, I showed you how to deal with all those thoughts zinging through your mind while meditating, and I explained that the secret to working with thoughts was to treat them as what they are: just mental objects that can be observed.

But sometimes thoughts will arise that have a really heavy emotional payload. It can be difficult to treat these kinds of thoughts as just mental events.

That’s the focus of part 2 of this series: how to deal with thoughts that tend to overwhelm you with their emotional charge.

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I get a lot of questions about how to deal with thoughts during meditation. After understanding that there’s nothing wrong with having thoughts in the mind during meditation (which I explain in detail here), the next question is usually, “Nick, what should I do with all these thoughts zinging through my mind while I’m meditating?”

I’m putting together a three-part video series to answer that question for you.

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Most of us don’t meditate under ideal conditions. We have to contend with traffic noise, the neighbour’s dog barking, roommates, and so on. While meditating, distractions are our constant companions.

So, how do you handle distractions while meditating?

This is such a great question because hidden in the answer is the key to how to deal with pretty much any challenge you face, both in meditation and in your life.

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In this post, I want to debunk one of the biggest misconceptions about mindfulness meditation, a misunderstanding that is one of the main reasons why so many people quit and never develop the benefits of their practice. Don’t let that happen to you!

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