If you don’t learn to control the mind, it will control you.

One of the most common frustrations I hear from people is how their minds get caught in ruminative cycles of self-judgment, questioning, worry, chaos and confusion.

So how does meditation help with this?

The logic of it is simple: You train yourself to watch your mind’s desire to dig deep into the rabbit hole and then redirect back to another point of attention (breath, body, walking, etc.).

This is the most fundamental process of nearly all meditation techniques. There are many more layers to meditation, of course, especially mindfulness, but if you did nothing else than perfect and refine this capacity to redirect attention, you would gain huge control over your mind and capacity to experience peace.

You don’t need to go down the rabbit hole. But you do need to train yourself to have that freedom.

Start with 5 minutes of intentional practice per day. If you don’t learn to exercise some control over the mind, it will continue to control you.