How we relate to our thoughts has a big impact on how our day unfolds, and also how we approach triggers in our lives. By taking a few mindful moments, we can gain some space between us and our reactions, and have some freedom from what triggers us—we don’t have to respond the same way every time. It’s a practice in breaking our habitual negative responses by first tuning in to how a thought or action makes us feel, and how it generates certain storylines in our minds. We can step back for a moment and recognize: hey, that’s not a tried and true fact—it’s just a thought.
Try these three simple approaches over the weekend and see if you can work on changing your relationship certain patterns of thinking. Let your experience be your guide.
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1. Recognize the Thought: If the thought is I’m not good enough, life is never going to get better, or some form of complaining or blaming or something like that, take a moment to recognize that the thought is forming in your brain.
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2. Relax the Body, Release the Thinking: When you’re experiencing negative thoughts, your body is also reacting. You’re going through some form of a fight-flight-freeze response, so take a moment to relax your body. Through mindful breathing, you can use the out-breath to release tension in your body, as well as any negative thinking. You can even imagine negative thoughts leaving your body with the out-breath.
53.8Kshares Facebook490 Twitter70 Pinterest53.2K StumbleUpon1 TumblrHave you ever thought about the fact that we are prepared for life and armed with knowledge for our lives in the classroom – the very room that we do not like to think of or at least neglect to a large extent. The thought (“I’m going to fail”) led to a feeling (worry), which led to an action (not studying). What might have changed if you had a different thought? Thoughts are the words that run through your mind. They’re the things you tell yourself about what’s going on around you.
3. Name a Positive: Now that you have a little space between you and your negative thoughts, consider for a moment: What’s actually good right now? What’s going on that’s good in life? Could it be that you’re safe, you’re body is working okay in this moment, you actually have some friends you can count on, you have a job—whatever it might be, see if you can name a few of those, recognize them, and also just linger in that a little bit.
Practice these three things over and over again as an experiment. What you practice and repeat starts to become more automatic.
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is hosting an online course to help people fully integrate mindfulness into their lives in a deep way in order to realize more enduring change. The in-depth 6-month online course called A Course in Mindful Living . Sign up now to join a community of people growing in confidence, calm, compassion and a life you love.