Meditation Tips | Understanding Dark Thoughts

13th May, 2021    |    By  headspace    |     771

Sometimes thoughts arise that we might not like. They could be angry, exciting or just plain inappropriate. Meditation teaches us to sit with our thoughts, whatever they are. And in doing so we become more acceptant of ourselves, and maybe of others too. If you enjoy this animation, and you’d like to learn how to meditate, you can get started for free, by downloading the Headspace app. http://hdspce.co/2GwxfER

Learn to meditate in a few minutes a day with the Headspace app. It delivers guided meditations based on teachings that Andy Puddicombe, Co-founder of Headspace, learned during the ten years he spent studying meditation and mindfulness in monasteries across Asia.

The first series, Basics, is completely free. As the name suggests, it will teach you the basics of meditation and mindfulness. After that, via subscription, Headspace offers hundreds of hours of guided meditations on subjects ranging from Stress to Sleep. Themed meditation packs are supported by a host of animations. Along with daily meditations, Headspace also offers On-The-Go exercises for users short on time and SOS sessions to support subscribers in those meltdown moments.


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Meditation Tips | Understanding Dark Thoughts

One of the most challenging parts of meditation is sometimes called the dark side of the mind. These are the thoughts and fantasies that we’d rather didn’t appear in the mind, whether they’re exciting, violent, vengeful, or maybe even sadistic in nature. We might think we shouldn’t be experiencing them, but these thoughts are perfectly natural, and there’s obviously no need to act on them. But why do they seem to appear more often once we begin to meditate?

Well, typically, we go through our day with quite a heavy filter on the mind, blocking out these thoughts we don’t like, either habitually or intentionally. When we block them out habitually, we’re unaware that it’s even taking place. We’re just so caught up in our day-to-day thinking. But by meditating, we’re creating more space in the mind. So, it’s not that there are more of these thoughts; we just see them more clearly.

But when we’re blocking them out intentionally, we already see the thoughts clearly, but we’re resisting them, perhaps fearful of what they say about us as a person. What meditation shows us is that we’re not our thoughts, so there’s no need to judge them or identify with them. We see that they don’t make us a mean person, a terrible person, or a twisted person. And it’s through this process that we discover peace of mind, allowing thoughts to come and go, at ease with the mind, exactly as it is.

Video by headspace