Andy Puddicombe

I'm going to drop them.

Now, in life and in meditation, there'll be times when the focus becomes a little bit too intense, and life starts to feel a bit like this.

It's a very uncomfortable way to live life when we get this tight and stressed.

At other times, we might take our foot off the gas a little bit too much, and things just become a little bit like this.

Of course, in meditation, we can end up falling asleep.

So we're looking for a balance, a focused relaxation where we can allow thoughts to come and go without all the usual involvement.

Now, what usually happens when we're learning to be mindful is that we get distracted.

by a thought.

Let's say this is an anxious thought.

So everything's going fine and then we see the anxious thought and it's like, oh, I didn't realize I was worried about that.

You go back to it, repeat it.

Oh, I am worried.

Oh, I really am worried.

Wow, there's so much anxiety.

And before we know it, we're anxious about feeling anxious.

This is crazy.

We do this all the time, even on an everyday kind of level.

If you think about the last time, I don't know, you had a wobbly tooth.

You know it's wobbly, and you know that it hurts.

But what do you do every 20, 30 seconds?