Stop your own brain: an explanation of meditation and why it’ll help you.

Hey all,

One of the main themes of this sub is that people dwell/ruminate on negative thoughts/feelings. This can affect your psyche greatly. While I’m not a medical professional, I have experienced the benefits of meditation both internally and externally as a part of my growth as a person and social human.

For starters, a lot of people think meditation is some sort of joke, and that pills are the only way to help. If you’re so deep in the hole that you need pills, I won’t step in the way of that… but know that the pharma industry makes huge money off these prescriptions, and pathologizing you is an easy way to line their pockets while also keeping you complacent to the structures that keep them in business.

Another thing people don’t understand is that meditation is an exercise. And like all exercises, doing it once in a blue moon isn’t going to affect you. I always get a response like “you expect me to just meditate away my problems?” Well, I was able to LIFT away my physical weaknesses, what makes you think you can’t do something similar with the help of consistent meditation? Just like brushing your teeth once in a while won’t keep gum disease at bay, and lifting once in a while won’t make you muscular, meditating occasionally isn’t going to help you better harness your brain. You need to make it a habit.

From a technical standpoint, meditation sits in the basis that: **Thoughts are fleeting.** They come and go. They pass, just like moving cars, or clouds in the sky. So, when you keep dwelling on negative thoughts, you are actually putting in *work* to wrangle those thoughts back to your mind. It’s kind of masturbatory in a way, because there’s a certain kind of mental catharsis that comes from having your mind full of thoughts, negative or positive. Your brain wants to think – it’s literally designed to do that. And negative thoughts are tied deeply to evolutionary survival instinct, so they’re the lowest hanging fruit for your brain to grab on to as something to think about. But you don’t want to let your mind be a bottom feeder – going for the quickest fix. You need to elevate your brain – give it better food for thought.

The “passing clouds” analogy is the best place to start with meditation. You should be able to let the thoughts go as they come. You’ll notice, in the beginning, that your mind just keeps jumping from thought to thought – and might go in circles, which is why recurring bad thoughts happen so often. So it might feel like you’re stagnated in negativity – when in reality, your brain is quite active, and you have no control of it. So, this is why we focus on the breath. It’s something you typically do very unintentionally – so when you apply intention to it, it allows you to focus on something. Your brain will want to jump – and at first, you can allow it. Again, these thoughts are just clouds passing through the sky. Let the thought come, but let it go, and do your best to bring your focus back to your breathing. This is, metaphorically, looking at the clear blue skies past the clouds of thought.

You’ll slowly get better at this, and train your focus effectively. From there, you can stop giving those negative thoughts any time of day, and start focusing on more positive/constructive things (edit: the “good food for thought” I was talking about). It’s not as difficult as it seems! There’s hope for you, and I urge you to try and stick with meditation to help do this.

Good luck all!