This exercise is something that can be highly useful when you're feeling overwhelmed by your thoughts, when having trouble sleeping, or when you just want to practice a form of mindfulness meditation.
As with all mindfulness exercises, I recommend starting out with a brief calming breath exercise, which can be found here. Imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a stream, watching the stream flow by you. When you have a thought, just label it, literally imagine putting it on a leaf, putting the leaf in the stream, and allowing it to flow by.
For example, you're sitting there by the stream, a thought comes up, you label it "relationship worry" or "money concerns" or "fears about my future," or "negative thoughts about my physical appearance," put it on a leaf in the stream, and let it go.
You can't stop your thoughts, but you can change the way you engage (or don't engage) with them.
You can have them, accept them and let them be, yet learn to not believe them or struggle with them by trying to make them go away or stop , or letting them get you carried away into a spiral of negative thoughts. The idea is that they have much less power over you when you are able to detach from them in this way. Remember, you are the observer of your thoughts. You are not your thoughts.
Let me know if you try this! I'd love to hear about the experience and if you have any questions.
As with all mindfulness exercises, I recommend starting out with a brief calming breath exercise, which can be found here. Imagine yourself sitting on the bank of a stream, watching the stream flow by you. When you have a thought, just label it, literally imagine putting it on a leaf, putting the leaf in the stream, and allowing it to flow by.
For example, you're sitting there by the stream, a thought comes up, you label it "relationship worry" or "money concerns" or "fears about my future," or "negative thoughts about my physical appearance," put it on a leaf in the stream, and let it go.
You can't stop your thoughts, but you can change the way you engage (or don't engage) with them.
You can have them, accept them and let them be, yet learn to not believe them or struggle with them by trying to make them go away or stop , or letting them get you carried away into a spiral of negative thoughts. The idea is that they have much less power over you when you are able to detach from them in this way. Remember, you are the observer of your thoughts. You are not your thoughts.
Let me know if you try this! I'd love to hear about the experience and if you have any questions.
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