I remember the first time I sat down to attempt a formal meditation. Guided meditations weren’t as popular back then, so I intended to sit in silence and probably hoped to achieve a quiet mind and get all “blissed out.” I was relatively new to yoga and the practices of mind/body connection, so I was inspired, gung-ho and more than a little naive.
I sat down in the cave-like basement room of my fiancé’s house, crossed my legs, closed my eyes and waited for peace to descend over me. I listened for silence.
What I heard instead was a voice. A very specific voice that was accompanied by the image of a muppet. It was a puppet’s voice – similar to a character on Sesame Street. I cannot remember what it said, but soon it was joined by other puppet-like voices and images, saying random and uninspired things.
At the time that experienced humbled me. Was I really at the muppet stage of meditation?!
But now, 20 years later, that experience forms the basis for one of the most helpful techniques that I use in my practice.
It is estimated that we have over 70,000 thoughts each day. 70,000 thoughts!! Many of those thoughts are negative in nature thanks to our brain’s negativity bias, a great majority of those thoughts are repetitive, and a baffling number of those thoughts contradict each other. So, basically, we have all of these negative, contradictory thoughts on repeat in our heads! Yikes!
In The Self-Forgiveness Handbook, Thom Rutledge describes the concept of a Board of Directors in our mind, which reminded me of the cacophony of muppet voices that I heard (and sometimes still hear) during my early meditations.
Of our 70,000 thoughts, some are encouraging, some are fearful, others are revengeful, and still others are optimistic. Thoughts of all natures run through our mind, and a critical skill in mental health is the ability to not get “hooked” by any of them.
When we recognize that we are not our thoughts, that our thoughts are simply objects that pass through our experience, that our thoughts aren’t “Truth” per say but simply ideas we’ve picked up along the way, we are free to choose which thoughts to use and which thoughts to disregard.
Personifying thoughts externalizes them and helps make it clear that it is not “Us” speaking the ultimate truth.
How to start using this technique to your advantage? Get familiar with the types of repetitive thoughts you have, and then assign a persona to the most prevalent or disruptive ones.
Got a voice always finding the negative? You’ve got an Oscar the Grouch.
A neurotic voice who worries all the time? Does it sound like Bert?
And don’t feel restricted to Sesame Street characters! Maybe your cast is more action hero (and villian) than muppet, or maybe they’re animated, in 3D technicolor. Maybe they’re cartoon characters, or maybe they’re archetypal human figures – the quintessential tough-ass coach and milk and cookies grandmother.
What does your encouraging voice sound like? What would that character look like? How about your wise, grounded and nurturing thoughts? Who is speaking them?
This is your Board of Directors, or your cast of mental muppet characters. It’s easier to disregard a critical voice if it sounds like a muppet, and sometimes it’s easier to take in the wise counsel of a warm, nurturing mental figure than it might be trusting ourselves.
So, go ahead! Cultivate your inner stage director and start auditioning your cast of characters! Soon enough maybe you’ll be just as entertained during your meditations as I’ve been in mine.
