The last couple of weeks, I’ve been sharing tips for your meditation practice. Last week, I talked about how it's natural to have thoughts during meditation. This raises an important question: what are we supposed to do with these thoughts?

To live a mindful life, it's essential to take time to meditate, to be still, and to be quiet. But meditation isn't about having no thoughts. Instead, it's about replacing the random thoughts that come into your mind with a specific thought, an anchor.

So, what is an anchor in meditation? An anchor can be variety of things. It can be your breath. While still and quiet you watch the breath without trying to control it, you just simply observe your breath. You can also use a mantra as your anchor. A mantra is like an affirmation. It’s a word or phrase that you repeat over and over again. An anchor can even be the voice of someone else that’s guiding you through a meditation like you might find on an app or in a live meditation experience. The key is to let the random thoughts come and go easily without effort and instead focus your attention on your chosen anchor.

This practice helps to quiet the mind and brings a sense of peace and calm. This practice also develops the skill of focusing your mind where you want it to go rather than the other way around.

The real purpose of meditation is threefold: you show up for yourself, you get still and quiet, you notice the thoughts that come and let them go, and finally, you replace those thoughts with your chosen anchor, be it your breath or a mantra or a guiding voice.

This week, I encourage you to try meditating with an anchor. As you sit quietly, let the random thoughts pass by without judgment and gently bring your focus back to your anchor. Notice how this practice changes your meditation experience and helps you cultivate a deeper sense of mindfulness.

Happy meditating!

This post is one of three about meditation. Click here to view the first in the series and click here to view the second in the series.