Mindfulness of Thinking

Observe your thoughts, without believing them, getting carried away by them, or fighting them. Remember, "Thoughts are just thoughts".

Transcript

Welcome to mindfulness of thinking.

You can practice this meditation sitting,

Lying down,

Or standing or walking.

If it helps,

You can choose an image to help you to stay mindful of your thinking.

You might imagine yourself sitting on the top of a hill,

Watching your train of thoughts going by down below you.

Or,

You might choose to imagine watching thoughts float by like clouds in the sky,

Or leaves on a stream.

Whichever image you choose,

The practice is to simply observe your thoughts as they go by,

With curiosity and without judgment.

We'll begin by listening to one sound of the bell,

Breathing in and out mindfully three times,

Arriving in the present moment.

There's nothing to do,

There's nowhere to go.

Bringing awareness to your thinking,

Noticing whatever thoughts are arising in your mind right now.

Noticing without automatically believing your thoughts to be true,

And without getting carried away by the story in your mind.

Simply noticing and observing as your thoughts arise,

Change,

And disappear.

Perhaps using one of the images,

Like watching your thoughts go by as a train of thoughts,

Or clouds floating by in the sky,

Or leaves on a stream.

Breathing and observing your thoughts as they go by.

You can experiment with silently identifying each thought as it arises with one word,

Such as planning,

Worrying,

Or rumination.

Simply identifying where your mind is in the present moment.

You don't need to decide if your thoughts are true or not,

There's no need to judge yourself for having any thoughts.

As best you can,

You can simply stay present with your thoughts,

With compassion,

And without judgment.

Perhaps saying silently to yourself,

Breathing in I am aware of thinking,

Breathing out I smile,

Aware of thinking,

Smiling.

Anytime you feel lost,

Confused,

Or carried away by your own thinking,

You can simply come back to the breath as many times as you need to.

Breathing in,

I know that I'm breathing in,

Breathing out,

I know that I'm breathing out,

In,

Out.

And then again,

Mindfully observing your thinking.

We'll end this meditation with one sound of the bell.

Reviews

I am just beginning to practice mindful meditation in my life, and was looking for different types of meditations when I came across this calming meditation. Thank you for sharing this wonderful mindful meditation with me. 🙏

Wonderful. Thanks!🙏🏻

Excellent guided meditation. Great instruction and helped me a lot.

Good ideas. Compact.

Short and effective. Thank you 🙏🏽

I need a lot of work not to attach to random thoughts— just let them pass by. This is good for that.

I liked ending the meditation on the sound of the bell.

sweet&short but full of wonderfully useful hacks. i was struggling to release my thoughts recently whilst meditating, with mind racing too much so that is perfectly timed guidance in my case. Thank you!!

Love it simplicity. Mahalo

Thank you for bringing me to an awareness of my thoughts.

Great warm up for meditating with the timer. 😊

I FOREVER ADORE THIS MEDITATION. It gets me to a place of quiet and peace with myself quicker than most other techniques. Simple and profound.

Simple, direct, useful guidance.

Great quick meditation that can be used at any time throughout the day to help you disconnect from your thoughts.

Good short quicky for those snatched moments. Thank you 🙏🏼

Very nice meditation, skillfully delivered.

Crear and short!

A great quick one to start the day & focus. Thank you!

Short, sweet and to the point.