Hi Carmen,
Great! I am really glad that helped.
I had a lot less patience with myself and tended to internally scold myself for getting distracted. I find that this broader awareness feels like a slower process, but it is much more natural. I also am less frustrated with myself when I have a distraction; I try to simply notice it and let it pass by me as I take it into my awareness. So I suppose what I'm doing now is closer to insight meditation than concentration meditation.
From my experience and from a little neuroscience on stress-brain-occlution/limitation (i.e., information not being able to pass through the reticular activating system (RAS) nor the amygdala), the "faster" process is the whatever processes or methods that a person welcomes.
This welcoming feeling gets the whole brain involved, not stopping the flow of information at that two stress filters/action areas (RAS in the brain stem and the amygdala).
However, even one's favourite practices lose their novelty and one eventually chooses to press through the boredome-- this choice turns the brain from rejection-stress mode, back to welcoming, whole-brain-learning mode. So it's okay to jump around practices for a while until the practitioner choses for themselves to stick with a method.I also cannot separate out insight versus concentration. Deep, selfless calm-concentration will arise whether the mind is using a broad focus like open awareness and sensate awareness and body-wide anapanasati as much as it will arise in the presence of narrow focus, like lip-nostril-ananpanasati, mantra, chanting, devotional prayer, repeated movements...
And in terms of insight: there is consciously reasoned insight (e.g., "When I think a lot during meditation, I itch") and there is "unforeseen" non-verbal insight --- as though an experience in the mind occurs without oneself, without one's creativity or one's reasoning-- it is as if someone is taken on an experience they could not anticipate and it has an actual sensory feeling to it -- not dream-like (in materialism speak, I think this might be called hallucination, which may be a negative experience interpretation, but in meditation this is experience can be interpreted as non-physical, actual, and potentially a useful, positive experience). This later kind of "unexpected" and "visceral" insight can be reflected upon with "deliberate" and "reasoned" insight, or the "visceral" un-anticipated experience can also just be taken for what it was without any additional analysis/looking/review. Both insights can be useful tools or can be made to cause oneself troubles, like conceit, delusion, arrogance, idealist bubble-making/aversion to other experiences in one's daily life, etc.
Best wishes and thanks for sharing your practice : )