Can you stop thinking? Most people would say no. Yet, it can be done. How? Your mind seems to churn out a continuous stream of thoughts. The harder you try to stop thinking, the more active your mind becomes and the more you think. You can’t force your mind to stop thinking.
In order to stop thinking you need to train your mind to relax first. Training your mind to relax requires a discipline. The more you practice the discipline the deeper the relaxation becomes and the more you can tune in to the sensations that accompany a relaxed mind. Those sensations are part of a complex bio-chemical-neurological process, which is largely involuntary. It’s all part of the relaxation response. With experience you can become familiar enough with those sensations to learn how to consciously invoke them. It is similar to breathing. Breathing is involuntary. Yet, you can also exert some conscious control over it.
