Reduce Stress With Mindful Thinking

A great deal of our stress stems from our minds, from our naturally flawed thinking and how our brains are wired for survival rather than happiness. This practice will help you reduce stress and cultivate mindful thinking.

Transcript

Hi,

This is Kelly Mackin.

My expertise is in mind management,

Helping people upgrade and change how they think about their world so they can elevate their world.

Mind management is the ongoing process of supervising the mind and optimizing your thoughts,

Making your thinking as effective,

Accurate,

And powerful as possible to generate the desired outcomes in your life.

One important aspect of living with a managed mind is developing an improved response to our naturally flawed thinking,

Which causes a great deal of our stress.

We do this by developing a mindful mind.

We have over 60,

000 thoughts a day.

A major part of our brain's functionality is unconscious,

So we can't choose or control the thousands of thoughts we're thinking every day.

A majority of these uncontrollable thoughts also skew negative.

We have a strong negativity bias with greater neural processing in the brain to respond to negative stimuli than positive.

So we're left with ants in our brain,

Automatic negative thoughts that cause all sorts of stress and problems.

You can't control all of these thoughts,

But you don't need to.

You just don't want them to control you,

And that is what you do have control over.

That is what matters.

We are going to practice cultivating our mindful thinking together.

If possible,

Lie down for this meditation if that's available to you.

Get comfortable and gently flutter your eyes closed.

Imagine that you're laying outside on a winter's day.

It's snowing.

There is a fresh blanket of snow surrounding you in this winter wonderland.

In the pristine whiteness,

The still and quiet surroundings.

Looking up at the sky,

There are light snow flurries falling.

Just watch a single snowflake fall in slow motion towards you.

Watch it as it gently cascades through the sky.

Begin to breathe more deeply,

Expanding your belly and your rib cage with each inhale and feeling it collapse on each exhale,

Releasing any tension or stress.

Now watch your breathing.

Visualize seeing your breath in front of you as you exhale into the cool,

Crisp air.

Feel your body supported underneath you,

Making an imprint into the snow.

As the snow falls,

Allow yourself to open up a floodgate of unpleasant or negative thoughts you have been resisting,

Burying or trying to push out of your mind.

Imagine your thoughts are snow pouring down more quickly now around you in what has become a thought snowstorm.

Don't try to resist them or even attempt not to have them.

Just allow your thoughts to come.

Become aware of the thoughts you are thinking.

Are they anxious thoughts?

Angry thoughts?

Overwhelming thoughts?

Just notice whatever they are.

Welcome whatever the truth of this present moment is,

Lip acceptance.

You can weather this storm.

You are not the thoughts you think.

They are not part of your identity.

You don't have to worry about whether a thought is true or what it says about your character for having it.

Thoughts are fleeting.

They are natural occurrences within our imperfect minds.

Thoughts are just thoughts.

You do not need to act on your thoughts.

It's your actions you take that matter.

They are harmless unless you give meaning to them and let them overtake you.

Let's take a deep inhale through the nose and on the exhale let go of any judgment towards yourself for your thoughts.

Again,

A deep inhale through the nose and on the exhale let go of any judgment.

If you have judgmental thoughts about your thoughts,

You create greater suffering for yourself and enable those thoughts.

If you aren't the thoughts you think,

You don't need to judge yourself for them.

Now shift your attention away from your storm of thoughts to your breath.

Let your breath anchor you.

It's easy to get caught up in a storm of thoughts,

But just allow them to pass by you like snowflakes melting into the ground,

Placing your attention on your inhale and on your exhale.

Part of the problem is we're wired to feel like we need to do something with our unpleasant thoughts to create the illusion of control.

When we have a floodgate of difficult thoughts that make us feel discomfort,

We become even more upset if we don't know how to fix how we're feeling from those thoughts.

You don't need to do anything with this storm of thoughts.

Just allow the storm to pass and focus on your breathing.

As the sky begins to clear,

Snowflakes again lightly and gently falling around you.

Just notice how relaxed you feel,

Resting in awareness.

Feel your thoughts simmering down and your mind settling.

Thoughts simmering and mind settling.

Feeling your chest rise and fall and the cool clean air fill your lungs.

When thoughts trickle into your mind as they inevitably will,

Just be aware of them.

Notice they're there and without judgment shift your attention back to your breath.

We are always breathing.

Right now we are just witnessing it.

Just the way we always have thoughts and rather than trying to do something with them,

We can just witness them.

When thoughts start to pull you away from your breath,

Just gently come back.

Just the way we always have thoughts and rather than trying to do something with them,

We can just witness them.

Thoughts are weather patterns of the mind.

Thoughts come and go.

When you simply become an observer of your thoughts,

Rather than trying to fight or resist them,

You create some space from them and that allows you to detach from them.

You can choose which snowflakes you want to stick out your tongue to catch and which ones you let fall to the ground.

You decide which thoughts get your attention and which ones you allow to float on by you.

Begin to bring some slow movement back into your body.

Take a few deep breaths.

And now gently open your eyes.

Meditation is the greatest tool to help you develop mindful thinking.

Becoming a witness to your thoughts during meditation trains your mind to be able to observe them outside of your meditation rather than be consumed by them.

If you find yourself with stressful thoughts pulling you into a thought storm or your mind is racing,

Come back to this visualization of your thoughts as snowflakes.

Harmless thoughts that you can let float by you without giving your attention to them.

Thank you for practicing mindful thinking with me today.

Reviews

Kelly, this was an incredible meditation. The visualization brought me so much peace and a overwhelming sense of calm. Thanks for sharing this practice with our communtiy.

Love the concept of thoughts as snowflakes ❄️

I usually meditate right before bed and I usually prefer male guides, but as day and night are two different things, I’ve found this meditation to be extremely helpful for my most stressful times and this female teacher to be extremely calming! Give her a try. You won’t regret it!

I love Kelley!

Thank you!

Lovely, thank you!

Felt so relaxed and present. Thank you 🙏

This was a random pick I made today and it couldnt have been more fortuitous. I am feeling overwhelmed today with feelings of stress, anger, and anxiety. I found this meditation that teaches and encourages you to be a mindful observer of your thoughts instead of bwinf consumed by your thoughts to be very helpful. It gives me choice and I will return to this meditation again I’m sure xo

as someone who struggles from obsessive thinking from time to time this was a terrific meditation. highly recommended. I feel much more mentally calm now! thank you!

a beautiful practice esp for beginners. Great visualization too. Thank you 🙏

Very helpful! Great meditation!

Thank you!!! I loved ❤️

Excellent! thank you very much!

Very insightful practice - exactly what I needed!

So relaxing. Beautiful way to start the day. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Very helpful! Thank you!❤

Thank you. Very beautiful image with the snowflakes. I wanted to have been laying down but I was on a pretty uncomfortable straight backed chair :-)

I notice what happens is when I am prompted to pay attention to my thoughts, I find no thoughts, per se... But emotion, physical sensations. Then I mentally think thoughts on purpose -- they're authentic thoughts based on the things that I have been worrying about for example, but sweeping under the rug.

Then there's usually something about whether I'm doing any given guided meditation, "right.".

Bookmarked it so I can try it laying down in the future

🙏

Very calming visualisation practice. Will come back to this 💜🌻🙏🏼

Very good advice love ants in the brain idea. Can relate to that

I am not my thoughts!