Published: 28.12.2025
I did today’s session in the morning. I chose to do it earlier because I realised that 9:30/10 p.m. feels too late for a meditative practice. It still feels like “a hard thing” in my head, and when I leave it for later in the day, I carry a subtle stress around it. By doing it first thing in the morning, I remove that looming sense of resistance. Eventually, I want to reach a place where this no longer feels hard (or at least not hard enough to create anticipatory stress).
The session surfaced quite a few interesting observations. I always begin by focusing on my breath b’cos it feels like an anchor into nothingness. But inevitably, the mind drifts. Most of the thoughts that arose could be categorised as goal-seeking (or desire-seeking). There was also a layer of thoughts that were critical (i.e. thoughts judging other thoughts). And then there was a meta layer: whenever I caught myself getting distracted and returned to the breath, there was a kind of internal instruction-giver narrating the correction. Even this voice felt goal-seeking, because it was subtly pushing me toward an imagined better version of myself in the future (one that has learned to control the mind through daily meditation). At some point, it struck me that mental chatter resembles short-form content feeds in a few ways:
- It is very disjointed
- It is extremely short (you never explore a thought deeply)
You get one fleeting thought, then immediately another, then another. There’s even a kind of internal recommendation system: one thought triggers the next, even if they’re not topically related. I’m sure neuroplasticity is involved in this chain. This then made me wonder: why do we even have so much mental chatter?
I think most of it is driven by self-optimisation (like an attempt to elevate ourselves over our past-selves/others). Thoughts act like motivation triggers or activation energy and they push us toward action. Goal-seeking thoughts also release dopamine, so there is a reward loop built in. A lot of my thoughts today were about planning - like deciding to take the bike to the physio instead of an auto, or that I should start planning the Dubai trip so we get seats for Teddy Swim’s concert. All of these thoughts are technically useful b’cos they would make my life better. But just like spending time consuming content, the key is intention. Without intention, even helpful thoughts pull you out of the present. For eg: my intention today was to sit with my thoughts for 30 minutes and do nothing. The moment I start engaging with planning, I’m doing something again. I think that this practice will slowly rewire my brain so that:
- The moment I catch myself getting distracted, it becomes easier to return to the present
- The recovery time between distraction and awareness gets shorter
Over time, this should increase the amount of time spent being present, rather than slipping into an past or future (without intent).