Meditation for busy minds - what works for you?

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I would love to know what people do for meditation. Whenever I try to meditate, I end up with one out of two outcomes:

1. I'm edgy and irritable, and never manage to focus, because my busy mind has nothing to do.
2. I do manage to meditate, and at the end of it I am a limp jellyfish with no sense of time, and no memory of what I was supposed to do that day.

I would love to have a form of meditation that allowed me to relax and yet feel "awake" and ready for life. I am not ready for nirvana quite yet.

I thought about this because I looked out of the window, and there is a birch tree shaking in the wind. The leaves are shivering and reflecting the sun, and it looks like rippling silver. I could stare at that thing all day.

Similarly, I love pictures with lots of detail - the ones that drive other people crazy make me relax, for example the art of Bridget Riley.

Is there a different way of meditating that works with a detail seeking mind rather than fighting it?

Two techniques that work for me:

The first combines basic body relaxation techniques of slow breathing & muscle tightening then relaxing, then disconnecting. But I found my mind would wander, so I added in counting backwards from 40,000 while visualizing each number as fast as I can. Eventually that became near-automatic so I had to add a second simultaneous visualization of moving down a tunnel of sorts to get to my Self. The purpose is to slowly disconnect from my body until I'm in something like a waking dream state.

The second works when the first one doesn't. It's a moving meditation, doing something strenuous in rhythm or pattern. Skating to music & hiking (w/o music) work especially well for me, as does digging or raking. The key is to keep my body and much of my body-connected mind occupied with something repetitive so that my Self can focus without getting distracted. Works great so long as I don't trip and fall off the trail, or run into a tree branch or chop off my foot. Rarely happens.

Neither of these were easy when I first started some time in my teens or early 20's. At this point they are formalities, or triggers or maybe just rituals, but they do work & sometimes just a token is needed. It takes practice.

I think the key to not becoming a jellyfish is to stay focused rather than dissolve (although that can be really nice for plain relaxing to relieve stress). Also, what do you *do* when you are in a meditative state? That might be key to how you will be when you come out of it.

Hi Underwater,

I'm not sure what type of meditation you are doing now but I have had great success with Insight meditation. The object of this form of meditation is focusing on one point, such as the breath. (others may focus on the rise and fall of the chest or stomach) It can be done sitting or even laying down. With a comfortable and alert posture I have found it pretty easy to settle down and focus. There is always some sort of "monkey mind" going on initially but after a bit that fades away too. The idea is to just be, and not worry about planning or what is next in your day/week. Once you recognize that you have lost focus, mindfully bring your focus back to your focus point and that's about it. I have heard teachers of this form of meditation say that it is " attention with intention" When I started out I did it for 5 to 10 minutes and have worked my way up to 60. I have found guided meditations to be very helpful as well. You can find ones that cover various topics (joy, confidence, stress relief, emotions, etc) at varied lengths of time. Regardless of the quality of a particular days meditation, I have alway felt more relaxed and centered because of it. If you are interested in checking this out in greater detail you can google Insight meditation or even Vipassana. I think all forms of meditation can be hard at first but once you find one you like I think you'll well on your way to gaining the benefits of it. Kind Regards.

After exercise, meditation works better for me, and I started learning to carry some of that peace with me.

I do the progressive relaxation also, though I don't disconnect. My purpose is to focus on my breathing, the sensations in my body, my emotions, ETC. and away from my thoughts.

I haven't done the counting backwards thing because I'm counting while I breathe. Like, inhale for four, hold for four, exhale for eight, or something similar. I also add in mantras, like the word "peace." I imagine myself becoming more and more relaxed. The more relaxed I feel, the fewer of these techniques I need simultaneously.

Awww, guys, thank you for the helpful advice

What Edenthiel describes is something that might work for me - I'll definitely try it. It's exactly the sort of thing that would be hard to find if one were to ask a random meditation practitioner, because most people don't struggle so much with a mind that constantly seeks out detail. I love the thought of working with my mind rather than against it.

Not exactly an answer to your question, but a couple things I didn't see mentioned. First, a common misconception is that to be meditating, your mind has to be calm and empty. This is not true. People think if thoughts keep popping up, they're meditating wrong or they can't do it, which creates anxiety, which creates more thoughts...ugh.

Meditation isn't an empty mind, it's a process of controlling your mind. Thoughts will pop up, a ton of them. When they do, gently acknowledge them and then return to your object of focus, which can be internal (breath, heartbeat) or external (a small statue, a bird, a poster), anything that anchors your mind to the present. This constant pattern, thought arises, is acknowledged, then let go, the whole process is meditation. Over time, there will gradually be less thoughts, but this isn't a goal you are trying for, because you should have no goal other than to be here now.

A common technique for this is called labeling. Come up with some common names for your thoughts such as worrying, planning, reviewing etc. When your meditating and the thought pops up "I think I'll have captain crunch for breakfast tomorrow" just silently think "planning" then return to your object of focus WITHOUT any self judgement.

One of the big ideas here, as I understand it, is to recognize that you are not your thoughts, you are that thing that is aware you are thinking.

This always confuses me. I was taught that mindfulness of breathing, the type you're describing as vipassana, was actually samatha, or "calm abiding." I was taught that vipassana was a sort of active deconstruction, to penetrate right into a subject, or sensation or whatever, and deconstruct it to fully understand every facet of it as it arises in real time, using focused attention.
I mostly do mindfulness of breathing, which involves just that, focusing on the breath. You're supposed to count from 1 to 10, in the first stage after the breath, then the second stage before the breath, then drop counting altogether, but I never count to begin with as I find it distracting.
I was also taught to focus on the sensation of where you notice the breath entering the body, such as the tip of the nose or back of the throat, and focus awareness on that sensation. Some teachers will suggest you shift awareness to save getting complacent, such as feeling the air fill the chest or the sensation of the skin against the clothing.
With the distraction you speak of, I agree with PrivatePyle - you're not supposed to have no thoughts in your head. Everyone has busy minds, that is the nature of an untrained mind. When I once expressed frustration with this, with constantly getting sidetracked and not focusing, thinking about this and that, only to realise I'd been wandering off and get cross and knuckle back down forcing the mind to focus, one of my teachers pointed out that that's what you were looking for - the awareness that you had been wandering and the gentle return to focus when you caught yourself. As you get more used to things, this happens more and more, this noticing you are thinking and then returning to your meditation, and that is actually a good thing!
PS : I do try metta bhavana sometimes too, but it is very difficult when you're alexithymic.

I try to do yoga daily for half an hour, I meditate at the same time and go through my internal landscape to test whether there is any conflict I need to set time aside to go through or to adjust my feelings or approach toward or mesh any new conflicts/experiences into the rest of the stone... or sometimes if I'm on a bad cycle where I keep flitting around like a rabid moth, see if I really NEED to spend a month or two digging in whatever is gnawing at me. That's where discipline and self control comes in, also perspective from the effort I've put in to get where I am.

I am on a more peaceful plain recently as I did a lot of work on my thoughts for half a decade which has culminated in the structure I hold around my brain today, it is a network of caverns and mountains with meadows and desert between that's the best way I describe it and a river runs through each section that I can paddle down at any time I feel necessary.

Calm.com adds a layer of natural sounds and musical tones to any meditation. Check it out.

Actually, I'm starting to realize that it's more problem 2 that is bugging me. Problem 1 is pretty standard - the mind won't shut up, and the only answer is to get better at meditation - gently.

Problem 2 is what confounds me; sometimes it's as if I fall straight into meditation with no problems at all. Meditating is super easy, my mind is a still pond, and I feel relaxed. When I come out of it I can hardly remember my own name. Is meditation supposed to do that? I have no memory, no ambition, no feelings and no sense of time. That's bad, because I do have obligations. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?

Thanks for the tip! Whenever I have to write something I use rainymood.com - it's perfect,

watching slow streams of water puts me into a meditative state

distance swimming at a consistent pace does the same

First of all, I want to say how awesome this thread is. Lots of great tips and experiences.

If you feel that out of it after the meditation, just a thought, do you think you would be able to motivate yourself to do a little minor exercise? Even if it's just standing up in stomping your feet and moving around to bring yourself back? Would it help if you listened to one of those guided meditations that told you to do this? Would a piece of after-meditation, lively music help? I haven't had quite the experience you describe, so feel free to ignore any of the suggestions if they sound silly to you.

I haven't experienced problem 2 myself. I have trouble meditating because focusing on my breath like that makes me nervous. I find that practicing mindfulness is easier. Mindfulness is focusing on the present. Try to do one basic task with mindfulness everyday. For example, try to take a shower but only focus on showering and not thinking about other stuff (like what your plans for the day are). Any simple task that you do everyday (maybe eating lunch, walking home, etc) can be done with mindfulness. Make an effort to do that exact task everyday with mindfulness.

I can do guided meditations (listening to a recording). Otherwise I just fall asleep.

I love Calm.com - so far I've been using the free version, and I love the daily meditation, which is free as well.