You can’t think you way out of thinking.
And constant ruminative thought is often at the root of a variety of issues from anxiety and depression, to issues with anger, body image, and the limits we place on ourselves. Our physiology is not disconnected from our emotional lives or endocrinological systems, and so our states of mind are reflected in our bodies.
Lots of people think they can’t meditate because their mind will not settle down and be quiet. But meditation is not about having a quiet mind. Meditation is about quietly being with your mind. It’s about seeing your how your thoughts and emotions are entangled together and generate reactivity. And how to find some spacious in all that so you can have your emotions and reactions without being driven by them.
Also in this episode we explore some common misconceptions about mediation and provide some resources for getting started with a meditative practice.
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Show Highlights
3:53 Why I invite my patients to consider meditation, because you can’t think your way out of thinking.
4:33 Consider engaging a meditative practice without any expectation that it is going to give you anything.
7:00 Common misconceptions about meditation
10:03 What’s in the way, is the way.
11:37 Meditation is not a retreat from life.
15:23 A few suggestions for building a meditative practice.
Trained both in the USA and Asia, Michael Max practices acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine at Yong Kang Clinic in St. Louis, MO. He is a translator of non-mainstream materials on Chinese medicine, and writes extensively on health and wellbeing on his website and in his clinic’s monthly newsletter.
While many in the West have heard about acupuncture and associate it with being an effective treatment for pain relief. In fact, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine can successfully treat a wide variety of ailments from allergies to migraines, anxiety to reflux, stress, depression ,fertility and women’s health and much more. He started the Everyday Acupuncture Podcast show as a way help us Westerners understand there are accessible and effective solutions to health challenges that do not require a pharmaceutical medication, but instead can be gently and naturally coaxed from our body’s own innate ability to balance and heal.
Resources and Links:
Candice Pert’s Molecules of Emotion details the connections between the brain, the immune system, and the endocrine system. She explores the interface and physical substrates that weave together mind and body.
Bruce Lipton, a former medical school professor and research scientist shows in Biology of Belief that DNA is controlled from outside the cell and that our thoughts and beliefs can affect the very coding our genes.
Other podcasts on this show that go into meditation and mindfulness
The Dynamics of standing still • EAP052
Mindfulness in medicine • EAP036
The difference between presence and control • EAP033
Zen is not about relaxation, it’s about practice • EAP026
Cultivating quietude, the curious power of sitting still • EAP002
