Hey, welcome back to

your Daily Mindfulness.

In today's session, we're going

to talk about how to create

freedom from your thoughts.

Now, if you're a human being and you have

a mind, chances are you're very familiar

with the stress that thoughts can create.

Of course, thoughts can be very powerful

and we can use them for critical thinking,

imagining that future being creative.

But there are also a lot of times

where thoughts create extra anxiety,

frustration, negative emotions.

And our tendency tends to be in those

moments to try and stop the thoughts,

get rid of them, or get angry at

them as if felt magically disappear.

And that's usually wasted energy.

So one strategy we can use when working

with thoughts is to become an observer

to our thinking mind, rather than

being caught in the thinking mind.

I'll share a metaphor that

helps me think about this.

It's a river going down a mountain.

So if you think of a river going down

a mountain as your stream of thoughts.

We could be sucked into the

rivers, smashing into the

whitewater, the rocks, the banks.

Really going wherever

the river is taking us.

Or we could be sitting on the bank of

the river, watching the river go by.

Same you, same river.

Different relationship,

different experience entirely.

And that's the quality of attention

awareness that we're cultivating

in mindfulness meditation.

And the strategy I want to talk about

here today, instead of being so sucked

into your thinking mind and instead of

even trying to fight it, quiet or get rid

of it, what would it be like to simply

become an observer to your thinking mind?

A strategy that can help take that a step

further is just to label the thought,

thinking every time you notice it, right.

So you might be sitting down or driving,

standing or walking and you notice

the thought of like, oh, why did I

say that thing to that person before?

Like, I shouldn't have done that.

And we just, we notice the mind thinking,

just go thinking another thought comes up.

Oh, there's a thing I need to do.

I can't forget.

Thinking.

Another thought comes up, why

is that person looking at me?

Thinking.

Right?

And so now it's, it's as if

you're eavesdropping on your mind

having a conversation with itself.

And taking that relationship, not

getting so sucked into the thought,

not identifying so strongly with

them instead, just observing them,

allows us to find a little bit more

ease as if we were sitting on the

bank of the river watching it go by.

So see if you can try this out today.

You can take a few moments in

silence to do it, or you can do

it as you're going about your day.

Thank you for your practice.

I'll talk to you soon and

until next time, take care.