Labeling Thoughts, by Michelle Welch

I have some trouble labeling my thoughts during meditation. I’m the kind of person who often grits my teeth when I say “thinking” to myself, and when I try to soften my voice it can come with a condescending eyeroll, “There I go, thinking again, because I’m just too dumb do this right.” So I’ve been looking for new ways to approach my thoughts, a new tone to adopt to them to cut the aggression.

One suggestion came from one of Susan Piver’s video talks, where she described thoughts as people at a cocktail party. They’ll keep chattering, it’s perfectly fine, but you can turn away from them and move on. I liked the sense of allowing the chattering to happen – you don’t have to tell the partiers to shut up – but you don’t have to get pulled into the conversation.

Another great analogy came to me when I was vacationing in Kaua’i last year. Kaua’i is heavily populated by a variety of chicken called moa, who, along with the other birds, create a lot of noise early in the morning. My poor husband was truly tormented by the noise, although I had an easier time dealing with it. I sat down to meditate one morning with all the bird calls going on outside the window and realize this was a perfect way to describe thoughts: endlessly singing and chattering, with one occasionally bursting through insistently like a rooster’s crow. But I can sit with them and let them carry on without fighting them or engaging with them, just being aware of the sound. It was a useful practice.