Sometimes it’s helpful, but it seems more and more like I’m using it as a tool to suppress my worries and control my thoughts, which feels bad and leads to a lot of internal conflict.
I can’t understand what people mean with “let your thoughts float by”. For me, noticing them is synonymous with interrupting them, and it feels like I’m suppressing them most of the time.
The way this works for me, say, when I meditate, is to acknowledge a thought and put it in a box labelled "for later".
I'm not ignoring it, I'm just dealing with it when I _want to_, not when my anxiety kicks in or when my brain tries to fill the silence in my head. If it's important, I'll remember it.
I still suck at this, but I'm somewhat better than I used to be. So, it's a bit like exercise, and one can get better with time. It's also very personal (ymmv). Again, this way of looking at it worked for _me_.
What’s described here is basically mindfulness meditation. I an not the mystical type at all and this was a great entry point for me:
http://ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Mindfulness%20in%20Pla...
“What is the upside for me if I continue to worry?”