When thoughts come, let them go. Our thoughts hold a lot of sway over our well-being—but by learning to simply observe them, like we would watch clouds drifting, negative thoughts can lose their power over us. Try this thought-watching practice to build the mental habit of noticing thoughts without necessarily believing them.
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An individual with depression might typically notice a mood shift and get sucked into a vortex of despair. I can’t handle this again, I’ll never get better, nothing works for me. Following that cycle, another depressive episode settles in. But with MBCT, people learn to notice a negative pattern of thinking and redirect it before sliding into another full episode. My mood’s down, it’s not my fault, and I’ve gotten through it before and I will again.
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Mindfulness can help us build awareness of how we think. That’s because in reality our ideas are actually nothing more than ideas. Many only add stress to already stressful situations. There’s a time for problem solving and analysis, for creativity and random fun. There’s also a time for letting things alone. Not all ruminations, assumptions, or imagined futures are worth—quite literally—a moment’s thought.
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Whether we want them to or not, thoughts come and go like clouds in the sky.
//////////////////////INNER HECKLER
Our inner heckler takes a far harsher perspective on our lives than we would ever take toward our closest family and friends. It hurts, and maybe makes us feel incapable of change, and yet most of the time judges us on nothing particularly valid.
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Caught in the mental squall, there’s not much point yelling or trying to force the critical voice away. Instead, we can acknowledge we don’t love the fact that our inner weather has turned nasty but not contest it either. That’s the critic spouting off again, thanks anyway. We don’t have to validate less helpful thoughts by engaging or fighting with them quite so much.
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With mindfulness we check in and find we don’t have to identify quite so closely with some of the storylines we create in our minds: That’s a disturbing story about the future I’ve created, but I’m doing what I can.
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Our experience is always changing. Without awareness, mental patterns related to what we crave and what we fear make life harder. Long past the time for valuable problem solving or learning from experience, rumination and other patterns continue and amplify stress. Thinking can be the problem, not the solution, when there’s nothing more to fix or to be done.
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An individual with depression might typically notice a mood shift and get sucked into a vortex of despair. I can’t handle this again, I’ll never get better, nothing works for me. Following that cycle, another depressive episode settles in. But with MBCT, people learn to notice a negative pattern of thinking and redirect it before sliding into another full episode. My mood’s down, it’s not my fault, and I’ve gotten through it before and I will again.
///////////////////
Mindfulness can help us build awareness of how we think. That’s because in reality our ideas are actually nothing more than ideas. Many only add stress to already stressful situations. There’s a time for problem solving and analysis, for creativity and random fun. There’s also a time for letting things alone. Not all ruminations, assumptions, or imagined futures are worth—quite literally—a moment’s thought.
//////////////////////
Whether we want them to or not, thoughts come and go like clouds in the sky.
//////////////////////INNER HECKLER
Our inner heckler takes a far harsher perspective on our lives than we would ever take toward our closest family and friends. It hurts, and maybe makes us feel incapable of change, and yet most of the time judges us on nothing particularly valid.
//////////////////////
Caught in the mental squall, there’s not much point yelling or trying to force the critical voice away. Instead, we can acknowledge we don’t love the fact that our inner weather has turned nasty but not contest it either. That’s the critic spouting off again, thanks anyway. We don’t have to validate less helpful thoughts by engaging or fighting with them quite so much.
///////////////////////////
With mindfulness we check in and find we don’t have to identify quite so closely with some of the storylines we create in our minds: That’s a disturbing story about the future I’ve created, but I’m doing what I can.
////////////////////
Our experience is always changing. Without awareness, mental patterns related to what we crave and what we fear make life harder. Long past the time for valuable problem solving or learning from experience, rumination and other patterns continue and amplify stress. Thinking can be the problem, not the solution, when there’s nothing more to fix or to be done.
///////////////////
Mindfulness Practice: Watching the Weather
One mindfulness practice that builds awareness of thoughts is called “watching the weather.” Just as we might lie back in the grass on a warm autumn day and watch the sky, we sit for a moment and note thoughts as they come and go.
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