If you’re overwhelmed by your thoughts
The more you practice watching your mind, the more clearly you can see that you’re not your thoughts.
Learning how to do this is not only important for managing stress and difficulties, but also for building long term happiness in our lives, too.
Research tells us that one of the key skills for quieting your ego is cultivating “detached awareness” — a nondefensive form of paying attention. It’s characterized by openness, curiosity and a willingness to learn. Developing that detached awareness helps you to delve more deeply into your assumptions and beliefs, let go of ideas about who you think you are, and grow in directions that benefit you and the world around you.
How to practice seeing that you’re not your thoughts:
• Watch them come and go; see how quickly they change?
• Write them down and look at them on paper. It helps with that sense of detachment.
• Come up with a gentle little phrase you can use when you get caught in your thoughts. A favorite: “Oh, there I go again!”
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