How to Use Mental Noting

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. So today I'm going to talk to you about a technique called mental noting. So sometimes when we're practicing mindfulness and the mind gets pulled into thinking, we can feel a bit stuck, frustrated, or it feels kind of tricky to get back to the present moment. And mental noting is a technique that can bring more ease, clarity, and steadiness into our practice. So here's how you do it.

It's really simple. In that moment where you realize the mind is wandered off into some kind of thought or distraction, you mentally note in a really gentle and calm in a voice, what it is that you're experiencing. So say the mind was lost in thought we would mentally note, ah, thinking or if the mind was fixated on an emotion, you might mentally note Oh, feeling. If you were distracted by a sound you could note, hearing. Or if you want, you can become a little more nuanced with the naming kind of naming specific feelings like, Oh, there's sadness or anger.

And having noted what you're experiencing, there's a sense of having acknowledged it, and that helps you to let go of the fixation on it and gently return to the present moment. So each time you find yourself distracted in meditation, you can use mental noting if you find it helpful. So noting is when we notice the mind wandered, we acknowledge that gently name, the distraction, and return to the present moment. And it's important that the mental noting is really gentle, almost like a whisper in the mind. Like they sometimes say it's like a feather touching a soap bubble, really gentle.

And noting can be done in daily life too. Most people find it's really helpful in maintaining an anchor to the present moment. So this practice helps us untangle from thoughts and also recognize clearly what's happening moment to moment so that we can grow in self-awareness and it helps us maintain a kind of non-reactive form of attention. Using mental noting, we're less likely to get caught up in emotional reactions, more able to stay grounded and present. So let's give it a try.

In today's meditation, I'm going to guide you through a practice of mental noting so that you can become more familiar with it and use it as an ally in meditation and in your daily life.