The Good Now Pause - Noticing Thoughts (ANTs)

The Good Now Pause is a series of short, practical practices designed to help you interrupt autopilot and return to presence. Each video offers a simple tool you can use in real time—whether you’re dealing with habits, emotions, or thoughts. These moments build awareness, reduce reactivity, and create space for choice. You don’t need extra time or a perfect setting to use them. Just pause, and begin again.

In this practice, you’ll learn to recognize automatic negative thoughts before they take over. Inspired by Dr. Daniel Amen’s concept of ANTs, this video helps you bring awareness to common thought patterns like fear, criticism, and assumption. Using the “Good… Now” pause, you’ll create space between you and your thinking. This awareness is the first step toward changing how you relate to your thoughts. Today, the focus is simply to notice.

Transcript

The Good Now Pause. Noticing Your Thinking. Ants! Take a moment and just notice a thought. Just one. I'm sure there are a bunch of them flying through your head, But just notice one right now. So now that you have that skill mastered, Noticing your thought, Next time you find yourself having a stressful thought or a negative thought, This is an invitation to pause and say gently or think, Good Now. And if you have been hanging out with me for a bit, You know that Good means I give permission for this moment to exist and Now means I am choosing to be present right here. Saying Good Now allows your brain to shift. We've talked about on previous videos, It's a pattern interrupt. It allows your brain to shift and create some space so that you can onboard your executive part of your brain, The part that can actually rationalize and think through things. A lot of times our thoughts are coming so quickly, They're automatic. We believe what we're thinking or saying and we don't give ourselves a chance to pause and think. Those automatic negative thoughts can harm internal relationships, External relationships. Automatic negative thoughts, That's the ants. That is a term coined by Dr. Daniel Amen. I will share all the nine ants in another video. But for now, Just notice when you have those thoughts, When you give yourself a pause with Good Now, What shifts? What you may notice is that you are no longer so into how you're feeling and what you're thinking that you can take a step back and actually observe yourself, Observe what you're thinking, Observe what's going on. You can actually think about what you're thinking in a more neutral way and recognize if it was a critical thought or assuming the worst or anything like that. The pause gives you the ability to shift and be more responsive rather than reactive. So try it today. Next time you notice a negative thought and tell me, I tell you what, I wish I had known this years ago when I was the meanest person to myself. Automatic negative thoughts. I think if there's anything faster than automatic, That's what I had. So next time you notice a negative thought come up, One, Just celebrate the awareness because that's the first step to change. But next to that, Well, And next to that, When you Good Now and become the observer, Notice what you learn from it. And if you're open, Come back and share. Or if you have any questions, Come back and ask. I am here to support you. That said, May you create the most amazing now moments. Until I see you next time, Make every moment count.

Reviews

Making every moment count . The message in this video is so spot on .