Letting Go Of Thoughts: Guided Meditation

This mindfulness practice is to train your brain to pay attention to something, whether it's your breath, a sound, something you see, or anything else perceived by one of your five senses. Its goal is to help you notice when your attention drifts off from the object of your attention, be able to let go of those thoughts, and bring back your attention to the present moment.

Source: Turrell & Bell (2016). ACT for Adolescents.

Transcript

Bring your attention to your breath as it comes in and out.

See if you can focus on noticing your breath as it comes all the way in and goes all the way out.

You might notice as you do this that your mind can be pulled away by thoughts that come up like thoughts about what you're doing now,

Thoughts like,

This is strange,

Or I can't listen and focus at the same time.

Or you might have thoughts about something you saw on the way here,

About something you did earlier today,

Or something you're planning to do later today.

Just look at your thoughts like you looked at the tiger with a sense of distance.

Then kindly and gently detach your attention from those thoughts and return it to your breath.

Now see if you can do the opposite.

See if you can just watch those thoughts as they come up.

See if you can just watch your thoughts as they arise.

Stay for however long they stay.

And fade into the background as a new thought comes up.

See if you can watch as one thought leads to another and another,

Like a monkey swinging from one branch of a tree to the next.

Just keep watching where your thoughts lead.

If you like,

Try to picture your thoughts as you did the tiger at a bit of a distance so you can watch them,

But you're not interacting with them.

Now you can open your eyes and bring your attention back into the room.

Reviews

Brief and pleasant. I like the distance and detachment visualisation.

Lovely, great for beginners. Thank you. Love and blessings 💙 x