The Weekly Minute - Your Thoughts Are Not YOU!

Instructions for Your Thoughts Are Not YOU!

1. Stop what you're doing, assume an alert and dignified posture, and close your eyes if you can.
2. Take 3 deep belly breaths to settle the mind and bring you into the present.
3. Bring your attention to your thoughts, noticing them as they arise, develop, and pass away.
4. If it helps, you can imagine your thoughts as images projected onto a movie screen; as leaves passing on a flowing stream; or as clouds floating across the sky.
5. As you watch your thoughts, hold in mind the possibility that your thoughts are passing mental events, they are not YOU, they are not the TRUTH, they are just mental events.
6. Try to hold this awareness as you move on with your day.

So much unhappiness and stress comes from our thoughts, or to be more precise, from when we believe our thoughts.
Just because you think something, it doesn't mean it's true. If you're feeling down, or stressed, your thoughts may try to tell you "you are not good enough", or that "there's something wrong with you", or that "there's no hope". Don't believe it! It's just the stress or depression talking, and it's not telling you anything helpful.
Train your 'Mindfulness Muscle' to just observe your thoughts passing by, recognising them as just mental events, and not believing them.

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"Moods and feelings are powerful influences shaping our frame of mind—the lens through which we see the world. This, in turn, shapes our patterns of thinking. ...When the themes of feelings and thoughts mesh in this way, those thinking patterns re-create the feelings that shaped them in the first place. As well as keeping the feelings going, the close link between feelings and thoughts makes the thoughts seem very real." - J Teasdale, M Williams, & Z Segal.

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