You Don’t Have to Clear Your Mind to Meditate. Here’s the Truth, Backed by Science

Forget the myth that meditation means stopping your thoughts. Learn how awareness, not emptiness, rewires your brain for focus, calm, and resilience[ri-zil-yuhns]nounThe ability to recover quickly from stress or setbacks.Learn MoreClose.

In my meditation teacher training recently, a student raised a great question: “What do you say to people who ask, ‘Am I supposed to stop thinking during meditation?’”

My teacher smiled and said, “I tell them: You’re not erasing thought. You’re developing awareness so you can be aware of thinking.”

That shift in framing matters.

Because meditation isn’t about not thinking.
It’s about practicing not getting lost in your thoughts.
It’s about noticing that you’re thinking, planning, worrying, and still being present rather than swept away.

Why “Clearing Your Mind” Is a Meditation Myth

“Clearing your mind” isn’t about erasing thoughts. 

When you “clear the table” after dinner, you don’t throw everything away. You put things back in their place: The dishes get washed and put in the cabinet. Yes, the garbage gets thrown out, or some of it gets composted. The leftovers get put away in the fridge. “Clearing your mind” isn’t about having a mind filled with nothing. It’s about putting thoughts in their place and creating space around them so they don’t hijack your entire awareness.

You Are What You Practice

In meditation, we get to experience our own awareness. We practice how to be in relationship with whatever is arising, whether it be thoughts, sensations, emotions, without becoming overwhelmed or reactive. And when we do that, we open ourselves up to experiencing more of the world.

And that’s key. Because, as my meditation teacher says, we’re always practicing something. And what you practice becomes how you live. Are you practicing stress? Practicing distraction? Or are you practicing calm? Practicing contentment? Practicing open-hearted curiosity?

You are what you practice. 

When stress or uncertainty hits and your body shifts into reaction mode (fight, flight, fawn, or freeze), if you’ve been practicing presence, your nervous system has another groove it knows how to find. You become more able to respond to the moment rather than react out of habit.

That’s agency. That’s resilience. That’s freedom.

What Meditation Really Trains You to Do

Here’s how mindfulness[mahynd-fuhl-nis]nounThe practice of paying attention to the present moment with non-judgmental awareness.Learn MoreClose meditation works: You sit. You breathe. You rest your attention on an anchor: your breath, a sound, a sensation. Inevitably, your mind drifts. That’s normal. You notice you’re planning dinner, or replaying an argument, or thinking about that awkward text you sent. Here’s the practice: You don’t shame yourself for drifting off or decide it makes you a “bad meditator.” That’s just you being human. You return to the breath.

Don’t push away what you experience in meditation. Note it. Recognize: this is planning or this is remembering or this is worrying. And then, gently, you bring your attention back to the breath.

Discomfort in your body? A sound outside the room? A wave of self-doubt?

Notice. Be with it. Then come back.

That’s the rep.
That’s the practice.
That’s training your attention.

And it matters now more than ever. 

Why Training Your Attention Matters in the Attention Economy

We live in a world determined to own a share (if not all) of your attention. Marketers call it mindshare. Social platforms call it engagement. Economists and technologists call it the attention economy.

But when you lose control of your attention, you lose the thread of your own life. You get swept into eddies of distraction that can lead to disconnection from your body, your relationships, your purpose. You start living in the surface currents of your mind, spinning, scrolling, reacting, while your deeper self goes uninhabited.

Right here, in this moment, is where your breath is breathing.
Where your heart is beating.
Where your hands are doing their work.
Where your life is happening.

Meditation is how we practice returning to that. It’s not about perfection. It’s about pliability. How stretchable is your attention? When it detaches and wanders, does it take a search party to bring it back? Or can it return easily, like a well-used muscle?

That’s why we train. That’s why we sit. Meditation is like going to the gym for your awareness.

Why Awareness Is Power

When we build awareness of our thoughts, emotions, and impulses, we build our capacity, our power. Not power over others, but power to choose how we show up. To pause before reacting. To stay grounded when emotions rise. To be fully here.

As my teacher said: “It’s not about whether you’re planning or thinking. It’s about whether you’re lost in planning—or aware in planning.”

When you’re aware, you can make better decisions. You can feel an emotion fully, and still come back to your breath. You can ride out distraction and still return to presence. That’s the kind of strength this world needs.

You don’t have to stop thinking to meditate. You just have to notice.

You don’t have to be peaceful to practice. You just have to sit with what’s here.

And it’s available to you, right now, in this breath.

That’s it. That’s the practice. You can do that as often as you like. The more you practice, the more you’re rewiring your brain for resilience. May your practice be for the benefit of all beings.