A few years back, I was really struggling with my state of mind. My relationships were crumbling around me, I was unsatisfied with the direction of my career, and to be honest, had no idea what it was that I really wanted. I headed into counseling and out spilled the stories I had in my mind about everything that was going on.
It’s an interesting experience to sit across from someone who is trained to listen to you empathically, doesn’t take sides and can hear things objectively. What I realized from that experience, was that even though these situations were happening to some degree, it was what I was making it mean in my mind that was the cause of the struggle.
It seemed that if I were to get a hold on my internal story making, I would need to begin to strengthen my ability to observe my thinking rather than be my thinking.
Why Meditation Helps
Meditation can be used as your internal counselor. It begins to create your inner witness or Shakshin, the element of you that is much larger than your conscious thoughts or fleeting emotions. We create the ability to stand back and get a new view of events, situations and even our thinking patterns. This opens space for us to question the real truth of our thoughts, opinions and perceptions and we can decide whether the perceptions are valid or not.
So, the fog is starting to clear, I’m getting a clearer perception of the stories I am making up and the actual situation that is unfolding, yet there still seems to be this question of WHY? Why did it happen? Why did that person do that?
Although I am becoming committed to a meditation practice, the experience of needing to know keeps plaguing me! And then, one day as I sat and observed my thinking, it came to me, like wisdom from the bottom of my well: surrender to the outcome.
We Are Not Our Thoughts
The thing is, as we begin to pierce our subconscious mind, we realize that we are not the thoughts, stories, opinions and reactions that are arising, so the inquiry turns to exploring who we are beyond the thinking mind.
The leap into the unknown beckons us, and slowly we let go or surrender to the experience of ‘not knowing’. How freeing yet terrifying! To not have to know why things are as they are, or how something will turn out, is a big relief and a massive step to identifying more with atman or spiritual reality, rather than our control dramas.
Starting to practice the element of surrender to this not-knowing is a powerful step to unhook you from the addiction to thinking. So I will leave you with this short, 13-step meditation practice below, which will hopefully help you too, just as it has helped me.
Meditation Practice For Surrender
- Find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed for at least 10mins.
- Make yourself really comfortable, best to sit, as you will be more alert. Get cushions, lean against a wall, but ensure your spine is straight and you feel lifted and long.
- Close your eyes and bring awareness to your breath.
- Start by noticing how you are feeling in this moment.
- Take a full breath in, and a full breath out.
- Inhale for a count of four; exhale for a count of four, slowing your breathing down.
- Let all your focus be on the breath and the count.
- Make your next exhale longer than your inhale; inhale for four, exhale for six.
- Next exhalation, let go of controlling the breath, and find the breath’s natural rhythm.
- Allow yourself to surrender to the peace of this present moment.
- Take a long deep inhale, and on your exhale mentally repeat the word ‘surrender’.
- Allow yourself to surrender to the highest vibration which is love.
- Know that the answers to your questions come when you release the need to have an answer.
