I can't stop thoughts from bubbling up

Perhaps you have the feeling that you're the only person to have lots of thoughts arise the instant you begin to meditate. You may even think that for you, meditation is impossible because of these thoughts. 

Don't worry – this happens to everyone! The more you have expectations of the future, dreams, worries or memories that monopolise your mind, the more you need to meditate. It's a good idea to meditate to climb out of the mental ruts that you've created for yourself, to forget habitual thought patterns and escape from the beaten path in your mind.   

If you reduce the volume of your activities or conscious thoughts, you'll discover that beneath them is a kind of background noise of other thoughts. And it's observing these thoughts that is the very essence of meditation. You will gradually learn not to be distracted by such thoughts, to allow them to evaporate and to identify them at an early stage as simply thoughts and not reality... In this way, you will learn to create a small breathing space in which you can respond rather than merely reacting. You will learn to be able to move those foreground thoughts to the background, and vice versa.

Sometimes the thoughts that appear are related to the guidance provided by Petit BamBou; the voice, vocabulary, sounds or breathing, or where you don't understand something or the silence is just a little too long. If you find that the words used in the audio guide get in the way of your meditative experience, don't be afraid to abandon the audio and follow what works for you. Equally, if silence bothers you, remind yourself that it's there to help you to remain inside your own consciousness, whatever the experience you have chosen as the focus of your attention (breath, sensation, or even discomfort or boredom). So make a point of using this type of obstacle as a new aid to contemplation.