Becoming The Observer

Meditation can bring up a lot of fear. What is it that people are afraid of? Thoughts? Reactions to thoughts? The inability to sit still? Not having enough time to meditate? Probably a combination of all of these. When we spend all of our life trying to avoid the noise in our heads its hard to sit still and shut it out.

Through Vipassana I have learnt that sitting still with curiosity and purpose, it is possible to find peace within and not be afraid. Learning to look at our thoughts helps us to release their power over us. Have you had experience of this?

Mindfulness can help to keep you in the present moment and meditation helps to deepen your practise. When you train yourself to sit through discomfort and not react to it, something else happens. The body relaxes and a space seems to open up within that allows you to observe the discomfort and notice the changes instead of reacting to them. Sounds really hard, have you ever tried to do sit through discomfort without reacting to it? What was it like?

For me, my usual reaction was tamed and the mind became still. Knowing that everything is impermanent and will change, no matter how bad it may seem, allowed for relaxation within. The tensions and resistances I held were creating more tension, and therefore more stress. Mind blowing!

Think of it like this. Imagine clenching and releasing your fist. It is like that when you relax and stop resisting. There is a free flow and tensions as the tensions are relaxed. Watching pain in this way is fascinating. When you become aware of your mind and how the body reacts to thoughts, you can use it as part of your practise.

The mind is amazing and powerful. We can feel happy or sad according to the thoughts we are having and believing in at the time. This creates an instant change to how we are feeling in that moment and affects the rest of our day potentially and future days; even although nothing has happened in that moment. Quite incredible when you think about it.

Have you had experiences like that?

I realised how important it is for me to have awareness of myself, my thoughts and my reactions, to then become the observer of them instead of the reactor to them. It helps me to be able to stay present to the situation and change the thoughts that I may otherwise have been reacting too.

Have you tried meditation? Were you surprised by anything that changed within you from doing so? Did it help or hinder your life? I would love to hear your experiences 🙏