Meditation for when you can't stop thinking

When I can't stop myself from thinking or remembering things and have memories pop into my head I don't want triggered by sights, smells or songs especially memories of people who have hurt me and past arguments I have a meditation technique that I have been using for ages. It's been a huge help for years so I'll give you the step by step for how I get my piece of quiet and remove the constant nagging from my mind.

*Sit with your feet flat on the ground in a chair is easiest. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and slowly 3 times.

*Notice how your feet feel, imagine your feet are glowing and pulsing. Feeling something pushing out the bottom of them and travelling downward. Let these roots grow downward more and more. Have them break easily through the floor, the ground, the rock right down to the molten centre of the earth.

*Feel the warmth there and anchor the roots into the earth wrapping them around the Earths' core. Allow the Earth to send up roots of its own right up to you and feel the warmth go into the bottom of your feet.

*Feel this warmth travel up through your body slowly through each toe, each foot, each ankle etc. Flowing upwards until it reaches the top of your head. Notice where the flow stops or slows down and where feels heaviest. Make those spots brighter and brighter and let the warmth grow until its red hot allow it to dislodge the heaviness so it can sink down your body out the roots and back down to the center of the Earth.

*When you feel lighter and full of warmth imagine a bright golden energy pouring into the top of your head and allow it to flow down into your body slowly bit by bit. Notice how this feels and let it grow brighter and brighter anywhere there is resistance.

*Allow both feelings from above and below to swirl and mix and continue circulating them until you feel ready to stop. This may be when you feel very relaxed and dreamy or you may feel a lot happier or more positive or just generally more calm.

*Now imagine you are in front of a large screen TV and you can change the channel to see anything you want. Flick the channel to the memory or thought that keeps popping up and bothering you. Watch it play. Take a slow deep breath and notice how you feel, do you have any sensations anywhere? Any heaviness or do you feel guilty or angry?

*Accept how your feeling and ask why this happened. Allow yourself to feel or notice any insight or lesson you need from this situation. Something may come to you or nothing may happen at all. When you have had enough take any sensations or feelings you felt that you didn't like and put them up on the screen.

*See some roots growing out of the screen and anchor them deep in the core of the Earth, see everything you put up on the screen get sucked through the roots back deep into the Earth.

*Notice how you feel again and see if you feel any lighter, if you have other things bothering you repeat the process as many times as you want until you feel less burdened.

*When you are done imagine the TV catching on fire and let it burn, crumble and turn to dust to fall back to the ground and been blown away by the wind.

*Slowly wriggle your fingers and your toes, bring your awareness back to your body and slowly open your eyes. Then go have a big glass of water.

This is a great meditation to do after a big fight with someone or a breakup, when you can't stop reliving events or have thoughts stuck in your head that are very unpleasant. It won't make you forget them permanently but it will stop you thinking about them randomly and having them come to your attention.