We all get those dreaded itches and other things that attempt to distract us from our meditations or projection practice.  How you deal with them can ensure you have a good session or a waste of time.

People always ask what do they can do about things like itches, dry mouth, likewise or even intruding sounds.

I generally start by asking people how do they fall asleep at night?  Because the process between that and getting comfortable to meditate or practice projection are really the same.

So ask yourself that:  How do you deal with these obstacles so you can fall asleep at night.

Personally, if I’m just sitting down to meditate or practice my phasing, I’ll attempt to take care of whatever current distractions that there might be.  If I’m already in the middle of practice and an itch occurs, then I’ll calmly and slowly move towards the area and scratch it.  You should be able to move slightly without losing too much of your relaxation and focus… if you can’t, then I suggest practicing something to that effect because it truly is a good skill to utilize.

By treating your practice sessions as a mini-sleep, you can effectively learn how to handle any distraction that your body might come up with.
You can try pure will power and not pay attention to the itch or other problem, but in the end, it’s just easier to deal with it calmly than it is to not pay attention to it.

Now, say the distraction is sound related, say it’s something external from yourself.  Then you have only so many options.  You can try to stop whatever is making the sounds by, once again, calmly and slowly moving towards whatever is making the noise and quell it.  My personal favourite is to listen to some kind of music or something that’ll apply a bit of white noise to the room you’re in.  For me, I use my iPod with various sounds and music files on it… however, I need new earbuds, cause the ones that came with the iPod don’t fit me well and cause too much pressure.

Another technique for dealing with “sounds” is to visualize the sound washing over and past you.  This works very well and if you’re like me and want to learn how to deal with sounds without them becoming an obstacle in the first place, then this is the one to practice.  Visualize the sound as a wave of water washing over your entire body, going around you and then leaving you forever.  It works great.

Anyways, that’s all I have for now about taking care of distractions.  I hope this helped a bit.  🙂