Carrots, Not Sticks: Approach Vs Avoidance Intentions in Meditation

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Doubt can often arise with respect to whether one is following meditation instructions correctly or not. 

This is perhaps especially true for people following The Mind Illuminated, which contains loads of fantastic and detailed practice instructions. I’ve heard from many people who love the detail and clarity, but get paranoid about whether they’re putting all the parts together correctly, or whether they’re getting some small detail consequentially wrong. 

I think this problem often arises from “avoidance-oriented” intentions in relationship to practice goals. Avoidance oriented intentions are framed in terms of trying to avoid doing things wrong; e.g. to prevent obstacles like dullness or distraction from arising. 

An avoidance intention might be something like this: “I have to avoid gross distractions, so I’m going to keep awareness open and watch out for them. I’ll also keep attention on the details of the breath to prevent it from going to distractions”

This often leads to thoughts like “oh no, a distraction! I was trying so hard to avoid them – I must have been doing something wrong, what was it? I need to try harder, or perhaps try something else.”

Avoidance-oriented goals tend to manifest in scanning for mistakes and imperfections to correct for. This is usually accompanied by doubt that some that have slipped under the radar. One becomes like a paranoid and highly strung night watchman, expecting intruders to spring from the shadows at any moment. 

This tends to be a rather unpleasant way to practise.

The solution is to practise with “approach-oriented” intentions.

Where avoidance-oriented intentions are defined by what you want to avoid, approach-oriented intentions are defined by what you want to approach, attain, or emulate, e.g. continuous attention to the breath balanced with an open awareness.

An approach intention might be something like “I’m also going to see if I can notice all the fine details of the breath sensations, and when I notice a distraction I’m going to take a moment to relax, note it, and savour the pleasant sensations of the breath.”

This approach helps you to pay attention to what you’re actually doing right, rather than all the things you might be doing wrong. And where things do go ‘wrong’ – distractions arise or whatever – it registers as an opportunity to meet your intentions better rather than as a failure that you should have prevented.

When practising with approach-goals, the experience of meditating predominantly becomes something like “yes, here are the breath sensations, just as I had intended to pay attention to; I’m meeting my intentions and things are on track”. This is worth feeling good about, and doing so massively helps get into flow – it doesn’t matter if you’re not doing everything absolutely perfectly.

Imagine the difference between a manager who hovers and scrutinises in case you do the slightest thing wrong as you’re working, versus a manager who gives you positive feedback for the things you do right, and occasionally makes suggestions about how you could be doing your thing better.

Why would you want to be the first kind of manager to yourself when you could be the second?