Floating Sentences

Let me start by saying that i have not yet adapted a formal meditation routine, as i find it difficult to force myself to actually sit down and do it. However, i have been using a style that i thought of which has been quite effective so far.

I'm a recovering addict from several things, and i am focusing on improving myself on self-control especially. So i have been making an effort to stay as calm as possible. This style is impactful because it creates a distance between me and my immediate thoughts which lets me objectively decide what to do. Anyway, i can only relate this to vipsanna meditation which in-parallel is related to thought observation.

Floating Sentences method is nothing more than visualizing my thoughts as if they were sentences that float in my line of vision. Of course, i don't super-visualize or any special thing. I just imagine it in my mind as if it was there. In that state i look at my thoughts as external things, things that i hear, but i have the choice whether or not i should interact with the thought. In this sense, it appears that i can be mindful of my thoughts.

If i was angry at someone, i would intentially put my true hateful feelings as floating sentences/words infront of me, but from a distance, i have been recognizing them as negative thoughts and as such i just let them float around without interacting with them any further. The immediate result is that i don't need to act out my thoughts at all. I can choose what i will do, and that's all about it.

In relation to addictions, this proves quite powerful as the urges towards the specific substance one's addicted to are urges that appear as thoughts. So in this case, i would objectively rule out the thought as the addiction urge and i do not interact with it any further.

This is not something that i actively do 24/7. I do it when i'm idle or when my thoughts could cause a mistake. It has only been a couple of days since i intentionally used this method, but it's just something that i thought suited my preferences more and so i'm comfortable doing it.

This is a pretty creative way to exercise control over yourself, nice. I do something somewhat similar (in function, but not form), where I recognize I'm being in a state of constant wanting. I want this substance, I want to get to a place faster, I wish a package would hurry up and get here, etc. I consciously become mindful of how being in that state of wanting isn't pleasant and that it doesn't help me any to be feeling that way, and then I calm my thinking and focus on how it's felt all the times before in my life where I felt I had everything I needed at that moment. That, and the fact that getting what I want, if it's even satisfying at all, will only leave me satisfied for a very short time... and after that, I'll be right back in the state I already found myself in. So, I allow myself to recognize that the wanting never stops unless you consciously choose to make it stop. Usually it works out alright, but not always.