Labeling Thoughts - Week 4 of Our 6 Week Meditation Series at ArcStone

If you missed why many of us at ArcStone are meditating in the first place, take a quick peek at "Practicing Mindfulness at Work – A 6 Week Meditation Series."

As hundreds of thousands of thoughts enter your mind each day, have you ever tried to cast them aside and not react to them? Or even gone as far as labeling them as mere thoughts, not needing your attention? That's what David encouraged us to practice as we entered our fourth week of our meditation series. Read more of the benefits of this technique below. 

What is the technique of labeling?

Labeling is the practice of noticing the thoughts that come into your mind, but then simply noting them, rather than pursuing them for further analysis. While meditating, when a thought starts to form, you quickly simplify it so it doesn't ever fully form. You do so by mentally labeling the sensation as "thinking."

Once you get further into this practice, you may be able to label thoughts more rapidly. This allows you to maintain all of your attention on the meditative practice and to get closer to what lies beyond all your thoughts. 

Why label?

Like most of what we've talked about so far, this method can be applied to your everyday life. Labeling can help you process and react to the world more mindfully. 

An example David walked us through is with the emotion of anger. Before you even know you're angry, your body temperature rises (your "blood boils"), your breathing becomes more rapid and your body becomes more tense. Then you react. It's in our nature to process the world this way – slightly animalistically – even when we'd rather react more calmly.

With advanced labeling, you would be able to sense your body's reactions before you react mentally. In this way, instead of lashing out at whoever or whatever you feel angry towards, you notice the sensations, label them accordingly, and then move forward in the way in which you'd like. 

How to incorporate labeling into your own practice

David introduced it to us as follows:

"It is very simple; when you find yourself distracted by a thought, sensation, etc. note it by giving it a quick, non-­judgemental label. Find yourself caught up in a thought? Label it by mentally or physically saying “thinking” and turn back to your attention on the breath / opening."

From my own practice, I realized how this is much easier said than done. I found myself mentally saying "thinking" so often at first that it almost felt like I couldn't stop. However, as I got deeper into the practice, this method helped me notice what strands of thought or sensations especially got me thinking, which was helpful for self-awareness.