Question: Hello! I’ve noticed recently that when I count my breath during meditation practice, random thoughts overlap with the numbers. Is this normal? I don’t lose the numbers, it’s just that sometimes the thoughts can get loud and clear, and my counting gets a little weaker—but still, I don’t lose it, fortunately. What should I do? Thank you!”
Thoughts popping in and out during meditation is very normal and perfectly fine. The foundation of meditation isn’t to work so hard to necessarily rid the thoughts, but to recognize when they do appear.
So if you are counting your breath and a thought arises, you simply just have to awknowledge that a thought came in, let it pass, and continue counting. As long as you can recognize when thoughts or emotions come in and don’t let it entertain for too long, then that is the point of meditation. Eventually, the mind will start to “reprogram” itself and thoughts coming in will be less and less.
I would also recommend that when/if a thought does arise during counting, once you’ve recognized the thought to start over with your counting. Even though we can continue, we want to restart because that also helps our mind develop that if “it slips up, it’s gonna have to start all over.” And that will also help speed up the process of having less thoughts come up.
Smile and be well!