I have heard my whole life that I worry too much. I think too much about what can go wrong. Meditation helped me to get more control over my thinking.

When people told me this I used to think: “I think worrying thoughts because I feel worried, I have a worrying problem, that is why these thoughts come into my mind.”

Your mind is always occupied with something, you cannot stop it thinking, right? I could not understand how meditation was going to be helpful. But as I -heard often- often heard positive things about meditation, and because I was desperate, I kept trying to meditate. Even though I did not really believe in its promised effects.
Only after years of just doing it and following the instructions of different kind of meditation styles I understand why it helps.
Meditation is training of the mind. It trains you to be more in charge of what you think and how much you think. It can help to make you a calmer and happier person.

When I meditate I am in a training session to get better at controlling my thinking. I train myself to think healthily.
In my case that usually means thinking less.

But it had bigger effects on me. It gave me insights in my own thinking. Many times before I had read confirmations like ‘ What I think is what I feel’ . But I could not use that wise statement because I did not understand how I could stop thinking what I think. I experienced it the other way around; “What I feel makes me think. ”. I was not in charge of my own thinking, and it made me often miserable.

I was not able to stop thinking the negative stuff so I tried something else: I thought if I ignore the sad anxious and bad feelings, there will only be the happy and calm feelings left. Just focus on the good, forget the bad. That was my unsuccessful strategy.

So far I have tried two strategies to become a happier person:
– Not thinking negatively: Unfortunately I couldn’t stop thinking negatively when feeling negative.
– Not feeling: I tried to try to forget and ignore the feeling. But that made me think a lot more negative thoughts (blaming others, blaming myself, feeling sorry for myself etc.) Other times it confused me and I did not know anymore what I felt.

Both strategies did not work. The first because I did not have the skill to let go of thoughts. And the second because it is the wrong thing to do. You cannot let go of a feeling before even acknowledging it.

I have only just recently learned that when I feel sad or anxious, I should not just try to be happy! This was such an eye-opener for me…

When I ignore the negative feelings, they will keep nagging me. They do not leave me alone. Next thing that happens is I wonder why I feel bad, what is the cause, who caused it, what do I have to change and so on.
That will result in

• Complaining, self-indulgement and feeling even more resentful.
• Relationships with people around me will deter.
• I get mad with myself being such a negative and draining person, which -Which- makes me feel even worse.
  Do you recognise this downward spiral?

Less thinking when feeling sad or worried will make me happier as -many- much stuff that I think up is not true.
My (negative)feeling causes my negative thoughts. The result will be bad.
I had read that many times before in my life as well, but I did not have the SKILL to influence my thinking.

I started meditating because I desperately wanted to feel calmer. I had no idea of how meditation could do that but because I heard over and over that that was what could happen, I tried.
It did not work. When I started meditation I found out that my mind was all over the place. An uncontrollable wild beast.
But I stuck to it because I did not know anything else to try, and learned very slowly, that even I can take control over my mind. Not always, but more often.
Now I can ‘think less’ more often. Thanks to meditation.
A new skill needs to be practised, so you can learn it and get better at it. In this case the skill I was learning was: let go of thoughts.

When I had learned to let my thoughts go, think less, I could focus on what I feel. Focus on what I FEEL instead of think.
Instead of trying to feel happy and content, I now focus on stopping my thoughts ( let them go, don’t think them through). I do this by focussing on what I feel. Not in words, but feel where it is in my body, and observe that feeling. Let any thoughts float away, go back to the feeling. That calms me down. And strangely enough by acknowledging the feelings they get less strong or disappear totally.
Now I can feel bad shorter, thanks to meditation.

If I had not had the practice with meditation I would not have been able to do this.

Even though I started off not seeing the point of meditation I trusted it to be helpful somehow, and thankfully stuck to it.

Especially the last year I started to understand the impact this learning can have on my life enjoyment. For the first time in my life I feel that I don’t have to be a sad and anxious person forever. I can learn to tame this wild beast, which is my mind.

In short,
I talked about two things I learned from meditation, and still practise to get better at:

Acknowledging my feelings.
Letting go of thoughts.

Two great apps I love to use to learn and practise meditation and mindfulness skills. (You can find them in the App store)

Headspace

Balance