Mindfulness Skill 5: Suspension of Thought

TRANSCRIPT

Interviewer:

You're tuned to Youth Jam, and we're in the midst of the morning show with Lachlan Bose. And right now, as it's a Thursday, I have on the other end of the line Dr. Patrick Jones, who comes on air each week to discuss a different facet of our mental health. Over the last few weeks, we've been looking at various mindfulness techniques. Now, Patrick, the topic that we're going to be looking at this week is thought suspension. This comes from a cue that you've given us prior to commencing the interview. So can you just outline for us what is thought suspension? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, it's actually quite a discovery for many people. Shocked me when I realized my mind could actually stop. So it's the ability to find the gap between thoughts. And I think what is so unusual is that a lot of people don't realize that it's actually possible that the mind can actually be at rest. Like the body, it doesn't always have to be moving. So thought suspension is that ability to not just see thoughts as passing and watch thoughts, or watch feelings or sensations, being able to be objective about them, be neutral, nonjudgmental. It's commonly how mindfulness is described, but it's also that there can be an interrupt between that constant stream of thoughts where there's nothing. So that essentially is what it is.

And there's a lot of neuroscience investigation into this because when that stream of thought is going, you can almost say a bit like me talking now continually, let's just say that's the thought stream in you. They would call that rumination. And it's negatively correlated with well-being. If the mind is continually going almost unnecessarily, then it's common to use unnecessary power as opposed to intentionality, where we put the mind where we need to use it for something, but then when we're finished with it can just be at rest. So that's what thought suspension is in a nutshell. 

Interviewer:

And it seems that when we talk about having an active mind, particularly in the scope of mindfulness, it seems that there's a bit to do with being attentive to your surroundings and to your mental state. With that in mind, why then is it also useful to be able to suspend thought in that way? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, just imagine, for example, say I was thinking of a soccer player or footy players really matter, and they're going for a goal, they're going a penalty shot or trying to have a shot. If they've got this ongoing narrative in their head whilst they're like running up to kick, it can really disturb them. So what they literally want to do, and this is tennis, is the same as the top-end elite, the pros, where literally it's down to match points, to have nothing unnecessary in the head, improves performance. So, like, you could say there are benefits on a very basic level, on the sports level, but also when we're very young, almost like zero to one. We hadn't really even been taught language then. 

So whilst we would be able to execute what we call cognition, we could still be aware of our circumstances, and still process them. We didn't have what we typically would call thinking, which is like verbal sentences in our head because we literally hadn't even learned those words yet and what they meant. We couldn't string sentences together out loud, let alone in our head. So it's almost getting back to that nature of who we are before all the thinking and all the concepts and all the ideas came and why. What's super useful is that sometimes the thoughts and beliefs that we've taken on over our life have been pretty troublesome and they've been pretty negative, or they haven't always worked for us. 

So imagine just being able to have relief from all of that stuff and being able to just be temporarily or at will by choice without always being a consequence, or without always having to respond to those thoughts and have your life run by them. So it gives you a place which is kind of like an innocent, pure way of being, and then you can interact from that place as well. So mindfulness always ultimately its power is that it gives you choice. In this case, it gets you back to that really nice, pure way of being. 

Interviewer:

It does seem like it's sort of hard to when considering this, I'm looking at it in the scope of some of the other techniques that we've talked about in the past and last week's was regulating attention. Now it's sort of hard for me to distinguish whether it's something that contradicts that or whether it's actually something that in some ways enforces what we are talking about with that regulation of attention, though, it has to do with a suspension of thought. What is the relationship between thought suspension and regulating attention? 

Patrick:

Yeah, Lachlan is a great question. It is actually foundational because regulating attention is training the concentration muscle to be able to put your mind where you want it to kind you could almost say the opposite of attention deficit disorder, add where it's going, wherever it wants to and you're almost like following it, trying to stop the darn thing. So regulation of attention is training you can almost say that the mental muscle to just be in one point and say, look, I'm just studying now, or I'm just working and focusing on this once that's stronger and it is able to stay in one place. And I like to compare if the body was continually moving against our will as our mind does, it would look pretty odd. 

So we really want the mind and the body to be able to, in a sense, be under our control. Regulating the tension helps to get the mind to go where we want to, but then once that's in control, to some degree, we want to be able to direct it not just to things that are moving, but to this place beyond all that movement. So really we're going to go into that. Now, exactly what is it? But there is a place beyond the mental movement that is just silent, it's just this peaceful way of being. And you need to have a trained mental muscle, if you like, to be able to steer the mind and its awareness to that place, and then to be able to hold it in that peaceful way of yeah, it's a great question. 

Regulating attention is almost like step one to train the mental muscle. And then step two is the ability to be able to have it still, the mind still when required, which is the thought suspension. 

Interviewer:

Patrick, we've been talking about thought suspension as a mindfulness technique, and we've been talking about its importance, why it's useful, and its correlation to regulating attention. But now can you outline what is your actual technique for thought suspension and therefore, how can we ourselves achieve it? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, there's multiple. I was down recently trying to look at some of the Margaret River Pro, this international surfing comp, and hey, surfing could be one of our thought suspension techniques, if you're good at it. But there are so many, like a beautiful sunset where you can just stop and just go and just the mind can just relax. So there are things in nature and life events that are really beautiful that can just stop us in our tracks, but then when we don't have access to those all the time, there can be some methods, too. So one simple method could be you just set aside some time to sit comfortably. 

You have your eyes open, staring in front of you, and then three steps to it could be one are you just let the thinking happen as normal and like you're just thinking and you're believing your thoughts. And yeah, this is then the case. And perhaps I'll do that. That's normal. Level one is how people normally are. And then level two is the mindfulness approach is to be able to step back and watch those thoughts feelings or sensations, watch them neutrally non judgmentally. So that's step two. That's the normal mindfulness approach. And then once you've done that, we then hit the thought suspension approach, which is step three, which is now that you've stepped back already, step two has been done. Look to the source of those thoughts, like where are they actually coming from? 

Interviewer:

But this is not like an intellectual inquiry, not like trying to come up with the right answer. It's an experiential inquiry. So it's literally these thoughts that I've been watching because I've now been able to get out of them and step back, where are they actually coming from? And you're looking for the source of them almost a little bit like a spring where water is coming from? Where are those thoughts springing from? And again, as I said, it's experiential you're looking for that one great question. Then to ask when you're looking is what is aware of the thought? Like, I've just seen a thought, now seen my thoughts. What's aware of them? Who's the one that's aware of who's watching this? 

Patrick:

And what can happen is when you ask that sort of question, sometimes the source of where they all come from is ultimately they come from like a silent place. It's not like a thought factory full of thoughts. And you go there and it's just noisy. The thoughts seem to come from a silent place. So though suspension can be a method, can be by asking, it can get you to that quiet place, which is the first bit. Another simple one, which is probably even easier for some people too, is you sit in your room or whatever you're staring at an object. Let's just call that C, and we'll call you A. And then all you have to do in this one is look between those two points, and we'll call that B, and then just rest in a relaxed way. 

So here you are, sitting in the room. C is over there some random what you've chosen, you are A, and then just put your attention in between A and C, which we call B, and then just rest. Sometimes there can be just a gap between thoughts and that's thought suspension. And then the goal is to simply cultivate that so that you can get there at will. And it's just a very restful way of being. That's pretty much it. 

Interviewer:

Yeah. Well, it is something to take on. I think that when I was doing a little bit of reading into it before starting the interview, I was even sort of trying to carry it out myself and see if I was capable of achieving it. But it does seem like the kind of thing that requires practice. So what I wanted to ask, and this is both the folks listening, but also for me personally, as a lot of these questions tend to be, what are the signs of us having completed this task effectively or ineffectively? 

Patrick:

Yeah, well, it's funny because I remember Eckhart Tolle, who you could almost say was a bit of a mindfulness teacher, he was asked, what's your greatest accomplishment, would you think? And he didn't answer for a while. And then he said, oh, the ability to not have to think. And then he laughed and said, I couldn't think of it for a while. And I think that's the kind of the clue is that there's just at least a few seconds gap between thoughts that's the sign is that you actually get some silence, which to me was crazy to realize that one. That my mind could stop. And that two, I could practice this so that it's a skill so that it's not like a still mind is better than an active mind. 

It's just that always with mindfulness the key is you want to be able to have choice. It's like gears in a car. Neutral should be part of the gearbox. We want to be able to go slow when required and go fast when required, but when it's not required, the gearbox is not required. You don't always want it to be in gear. So that gap in a sense is the sign that you're getting somewhere with it. And there are so many different descriptions of why this is a useful thing. Like for example, even in the Christian tradition, be still and know that I'm God or things like that, where people just get some kind of experience that just quietens them and they just feel a sense of harmony and wholeness. And that's really what thought suspension offers us. 

It does sound sort of similar to that whole principle of sort of trying to catch yourself thinking, or not thinking, so to speak. And it's that whole thing of if you've ever heard of that expression and someone says to you can't catch yourself not thinking, you instantly try to see that you can. But when you start to do that with conviction, your mind is obviously quite active. But if you were to do this as almost like by way of this process, you're still thinking and you're still receiving things, but it's a way of calming down the mind which trying to do sort of like hyperactively won't achieve. 

Well, there are actually so many ways that you can do this. Another one is also to say, okay, so start thinking now. And immediately people can just go there's almost like the vehicle shudders for a little bit and doesn't actually do anything. I actually think this capacity to just not always have to think is literally just around the corner for a lot of people. It's just under the surface. Yeah, it's definitely worth cultivating. It just gives people a choice. I do a few triathlons and so on and I read the stuff about how you can do some massive distances and those run legs at the end, it can be 20 k's. And they're talking about the useless narrative that people can have when they're going through pain. It's like 15 km go I can do this, my body's shutting down, whatever. 

And they just talk about when you can quieten all that down. It's a performance enhancer, like all that unnecessary dialogue and you can kind of just be with the running and be with the movement. Whatever it is that you're doing, it really links back to present-moment awareness where you're in the moment a lot more. The narrative is out of the way. And again, neuroscience as I said, is super strong on the benefits of it. So it's actually a very natural facility for people. But funnily enough, we almost need to be retrained to be able to experience it. 

Interviewer:

I can see it as well being beneficial when it comes to going to sleep, because I, for the last couple of weeks, have been working on the final batch of things set to be due for uni at the end of the semester. And though I try to avoid it has inevitably happened where I'll end up working quite soon up to the point where I need to go to bed. And I find that going to bed, like lying down and sort of saying, all right, we're shutting off now, soon after having stopped, having been in a mode of thought and writing and everything like that, is so ineffective for winding down. It's like the minute you get into bed, your head's still in that space of formulating sentences and everything like that. 

And invariably, it takes a while to get to sleep, but then also I find that the sleep isn't that great while you're doing it. I remember I was saying to someone a few years ago, that I don't really play video games, but I did when I was much younger. And I remember having one particular weekend on a Saturday of just playing them nonstop, like, literally woke up in the morning, played this particular video game until I then went to bed. And I was in bed. And you know, that sort of half. 

Patrick:

Sleep is not going to happen easily. 

Interviewer:

No, it's not going to happen. But you know, that sort of half awake, half asleep sort of lucid state you're in. I caught myself in that and then I noticed that my finger was moving and it was the exact same movement that it was applying as if I was pressing a button because it was just stuck in that rut. So I can see it. The way that I would apply it personally to do with where I'm at now would be as a way of shutting off after being in a state of hyperactivity, either physical or mental. 

Patrick:

Yeah, that's exactly a bit like the gear analogy I had. When the car doesn't need to be in gear, you should be able to have neutral as an option or literally turn it off. I think that's pretty much the issue for people, is that most people don't have a neutral option. It's got to be in gear and it's not necessary. And I think when we talk about rest and recovery, it's a kind of critical bit. That's why the sleep cycle is there. In fact, also done studies with people who meditate regularly and have deeper meditations. They don't necessarily need as much sleep because that stillness is very restorative. 

And I think it sort of shows that you can get to a place almost back to the ideas of flow and sort of efficiency, that you're only using the muscles or the energy that's required for the task and not anything on top of that. And I think the thought suspension is that same process of it's sort of an elegant way of being. So you can just be and then when you need to activate the body or need to activate the mind, you can but it's a voluntary choice, and that's really now we're in you could almost say the realm of mastery, but it's almost just being fully functional. It's like being a balanced human being that you can actually use the mind, use the body when required, and then when it's not needed, it goes into different modes. 

Grand saver mode or whatever it is. Yeah, I think it's about always coming back to choice for me, that ability to be able to direct the mind and the body where and when required and when not needed. 

Interviewer:

You can just be yeah, of course. And something that I think needs practice, along with a number of the other techniques that we've talked about so far. Now, Patrick, you'll be back next week to discuss another mindfulness technique, but in the meantime, thanks for getting in touch with us today on Youth Jam. 

Patrick:

Yep, pleasure. 

Interviewer:

All right, take care.