What if you can’t get past your thoughts? Read on…
Craig writes:
My question is how to shut my thoughts up long enough so that I can do this work. Your book is wonderful. I’m reading it and practicing it. I’ve had many moments of clarity and many more moments of I just can’t do it because I’m hijacked by my thoughts.
Dear Craig:
So you sit down to do Focusing. You want to bring awareness into your body. And you find that your mind is so full of thoughts that you just can’t feel your body at all.
OK! Good for you for noticing that! Now notice what some of those thoughts are.
Let’s say they are discouraging thoughts about the process itself. For example: “I won’t be able to do this.” “This isn’t going to help.” “My problems are too messed up to change.”
(Having thoughts like these is quite typical, by the way.)
So then you acknowledge the part of you that is raising those questions, like this, for example:
“Something in me is saying that this isn’t going to help… and I’m saying Hello to that.”
Here’s the cool thing: You are now in the process. Rather than being prevented by the thoughts, you are actually being helped by the thoughts. They come from a part of you that’s worried. Worry is a feeling, you you are feeling it. Well done!
(I love knowing that anything that seems to be an obstacle or a block is actually something else to say Hello to and make a relationship with!)
Of course there is more. There’s probably a body sense that goes with the worry. And now that you’ve acknowledged the thought, you can probably feel your body. Keep going!
