I’ve written a few posts on rushing because I know that when I bring repeated awareness to the tendency of rushing, it diminishes the frantic energy around the feeling.
But feeling rushed isn’t the only thing that I’m repeatedly confronted with. During my meditation sessions, I often also become aware that I have a strong tendency to want to solve certain things in my head. This mental looping of problems and solutions, just like rushing, takes me out of the present moment.
Often in meditation, I’ll turn concepts and ideas around and around until I eventually realise that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I think about it. It doesn’t matter how long I try to think about it. And I can’t find a solution by going around in circles about it. I realise then that my thoughts are just a bunch of concepts swirling around.
When you’re meditating you want your mind to be silent. Ideally. But that’s the very rare exception—not the rule. What sometimes works better is to observe your thoughts. But the trick is to observe without judgement. That’s the key. Detached observation lessens the grip of the thought loop.