Guided, a railway platform, nothing to do. Music underneath
Intrusive thoughts are not stopped, they are starved. Your mind only watches for two things: did it make you feel something, and did you go with it.
About 14 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice.
Push a thought away and you have given it exactly what it wanted, which is your attention. Good or bad makes no difference to the sender. So you sit on the platform and let the trains in. Someone hands you something, you say thank you, you put it down. Do that long enough and the mind quietly stops sending that one.
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Thank you for sitting with me.
Steven
Who this is for
Thoughts that turn up without warning or permission, and will not take the hint.
Push one away and you have handed it exactly what it wanted. Your subconscious watches for two things only. Did that make you feel something, and did you go with it. Good or bad makes no difference to the sender.
Intrusive thoughts are not stopped. They are starved.
What happens in this meditation
There is a short explanation first of how the sending works, then the practice.
You sit on a platform, relaxed and alert, and wait. A train pulls in. You notice what kind it is. A worry, a memory, a plan, a judgement.
Then you choose. If you like it, get on and drive it wherever you want. If you do not, you do absolutely nothing. No pushing, no frustration. Somebody hands you a sweet, you say thank you, you put it down.
If you find you climbed aboard and are three stops down the line, that is not failure. Noticing is the practice arriving.
How to get the most from it
Fourteen minutes, and alert beats comfortable, because you are waiting for something to arrive.
Do not go looking for an intrusive thought to practise on. Sit and let one turn up. The waiting is part of it.
Then carry it into the day. Ah, there is a thought. Not today. Do that long enough and the mind quietly stops sending that one.
Questions people ask
How long before a thought stops arriving?
Not overnight, and it varies. What you tend to notice is the absence: at some point you realise you have not had it for a while.
What if the thought is genuinely disturbing?
The practice is the same, and it is not a substitute for proper help. If a thought frightens you or will not shift, talk to your doctor. I am not trained and would not pretend to be.
Is doing nothing not just avoidance?
No. Avoidance is refusing to look. This is looking straight at it and then not acting, which is a different thing and much harder.
Read along
The transcript
It follows the audio. Press any line to jump there.
overthinking · anxiety · mindfulness
Read the transcript
Welcome to this meditation.
We're going to look at some of those intrusive thoughts. Those uninvited visitors that show up in our
minds without warning or permission.
And this practice isn't about stopping your thoughts. You cannot stop them, but you can change your relationship with
them. And that changes everything.
But Let's begin. Find yourself your seat in your comfortable position, whether you're on a cushion or a chair
or sitting up in bed. Just arrive where you are and just feel the weight of your body.
Feel what's supporting you.
And feel like you've been held.
And just allow your breath to be exactly what it is.
You don't need to do anything with it.
You don't need to change it.
Your body's been breathing for a long time. It doesn't need any intrusion or any... it
knows what it's doing. Just let it be.
Allow your breath to be exactly what it needs to be in this moment
Allow your body to relax.
You don't need to force it.
Just like you're breathing your body knows how to relax. You just allow it to happen.
Allow your shoulders to relax.
Allow your face and your cheeks
eyes your tongue, your nose.
Even your ears.
And just allow your arms and your hands.
And the rest of your body just to relax into this moment.
Just allowing this moment to be what it is.
Allowing your breath to be what it is.
Allowing every muscle and every part of your body to be.
Just what it wants to be.
So while you're just sat here now,
I'm just going to talk you through how the thoughts work and the way I deal with my intrusive thoughts.
So
your subconscious mind is constantly generating thoughts, sending them up like trains into a train station. Some
are nice and pleasant, some mundane, some deeply unwelcome. And you didn't ask for
most of them. They simply appeared.
When an intrusive thought arrives, most of us react immediately. We get annoyed, we get frightened and
we argue with it. We try to push it away. And in doing that, we give it exactly what it's
looking for.
We give it the attention it wants.
Your subconscious mind watches for two things.
Did the thought create an emotion? And did the person go with it?
And that's all it cares about.
And it does not matter whether the emotion is positive or negative.
If the thought makes you angry, the subconscious mind registers that as something important. It thinks,
this must be a threat. Better keep sending it.
If it makes you feel good, it thinks This is rewarding, send more.
Positive or negative, the message is the same. This thought matters, keep it coming. So
imagine you're sitting on a platform at a railway station. And
the trains are putting in Each train is a thought. If
one arrives you like, jump on it.
Enjoy the ride. Take the driver's seat and go wherever you want. That's your choice.
But if a train pulls in and it's not what you want and you don't have to get on board.
You don't have to chase it. You simply do nothing. You see it, you acknowledge it
and you let it pass. It's
like someone handing you a suite A child coming up to you and going here you can say thank you,
put it to one side and carry on. And just because a thought turns up, it doesn't mean you have
to do anything with it. There's no obligation. You're not doing a deal with your thoughts and
I think this is most important. If a thought occurs, if it turns up, you don't have to do anything
with it.
It really is that simple. But it takes practice, a great deal of practice. Because
we've spent a lifetime reacting to every thought as though our lives depend on it sometimes. And
over time, when you stop giving the thought your emotional energy, the subconscious mind gets the message. It
stops sending it.
Have you noticed when you do nothing with the thought for a while, and then suddenly you don't have that
thought for ages and you're like, oh, I didn't think about that for a while. That's
exactly what we want to happen. It doesn't happen overnight, but gradually it learns this one is not needed.
And
the train stops arriving at your station. So
let's sit back, allow the body to relax again.
Feel yourself sitting on the platform,
relaxed and alert, just gently, quietly present.
The station is calm. You are simply sitting and waiting. With
nowhere to go and nothing to do
at some point, a thought would arrive Just sit and wait for it.
So when it comes, notice it. What
kind of train is it? Is it a worry, a memory, a plan, a judgement? Is
it a visual thought?
A story? Just observe it.
And now feel what it's like to choose. You can board it or you can let it sit and
move on.
If it's an intrusion, practice doing nothing, absolutely nothing with it.
Don't push it away. Don't get frustrated. Just
let it be there and then let it go.
Letting it go doesn't mean doing anything with it. It just means moving on to the next thing.
No emotion, no reaction, just quiet, steady presence.
Another the thought will come, see it arrive, recognise it and again choose.
If you find yourself accidentally climbed on board and you're three stops down the line before you notice, that's completely
fine. That's
not failure, that's awareness arriving.
The moment you realise you're on the train, this is the moment you can step off. Return to the platform,
sit down and wait for the next one. And
keep practicing, sitting, watching, choosing. Some trains will be tempting, loud, dramatic.
Notice the pull and
see if you can simply not respond. Just simply be on the platform, not get on the trains
You cannot stop the trains from coming, but the goal is to sit with such quiet confidence that
no thought can pull you off the platform unless you choose to go.
And you are not your thoughts, you are the one watching them arrive and depart.
You have thoughts, but you are not those thoughts.
And that awareness is always calm, always still and always free. And
really we're just training our minds to to
say what thoughts we want to get onto and what thoughts that we want, the thoughts that we enjoy.
The mind wants to please.
And stay here for a few moments just sitting, just
breathing, just watching.
And the more you do this in meditation, the more you can do it in real life when a thought
turns up. Ah, there's a thought.
Not today.
And now gently let's begin to come back.
To the five, take a slow easy breath. Feel the room around you, the temperature, the surface
beneath you. Four, gently move your arms, a small stretch if it feels good. Three, wiggle your fingers and
toes and feel the energy returning to your hands and feet
to softly open your eyes and look around the room and let the world come back into focus. And
just take a deeper breath. So it's just one, exhale and just land here right here now. And
every time a thought arrives today, as much as you possibly can remember, just go high thought I'm
not going to get on you now. Yeah, I'm going to it on you. I like this. This is a
nice store I'm okay with this one.
And you slowly train your subconscious mind to give the thoughts that you want.
Just as a train putting into the station and you always, you get to choose.
I'm
Steven Webb and thank you for your support. And this podcast is brought to you totally free. With no adverts
because of the people that treat me to a coffee. So thank you to everyone. And if you want to
listen more about my other podcast and the other work I do, you can head over to StevenWebb.uk
The link is in the show notes. Take care. Have a wonderful day. And remember, you can choose
