Helpful Questions for Unhelpful Thoughts

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today I'm going to talk about helpful questions for unhelpful thoughts. So often in life, we become really attached to the storylines in the mind and we take them to be the truth, and then they really pull us into emotional reactivity. So, unfortunately far too often, the storylines that we have are not that helpful. They're not the ones that make us calm, happy, and at ease within our own skin.

The storylines that we hold on to a very often quite critical of others and even more so of ourselves. And they also tend to focus on what's not good enough, what's wrong, or what's unwanted. When our mental commentary is unhelpful, it can really hold us back, create a lot of tension in our relationships and dampen our ability to have joy in our lives. So mindfulness is wonderful because it helps us to step back from our thoughts and then we're less pulled around by them. But some thoughts are a bit more sticky and hard to let go of.

So when this happens, we can question the thoughts to help dis-identify from them. So we notice there's unhelpful thoughts going around in the mind, we can ask ourselves one of the following questions, mentally. The questions like: Is this thought actually true? Do I want to buy into this story? If I do, what can I gain or lose? Is this story helpful or is my mind just babbling on? Does this thought help me take effective action? How can I make the best of this situation? Who would I be without this thought? How can I see this in a completely new and different way? So by asking ourselves questions like these, we can unhook from those really sticky or unhelpful thoughts that were pulling us around and find clarity of mind and steadiness again. So it can take courage and humility to question our thoughts and let go of certain stories in the mind, but our willingness to do so will be equal to our feelings of inner strength, lightness, and joy. So today, and for the rest of this week, seeing if you can notice whenever unhelpful thoughts arise, and whenever you need to, using these helpful questions for unhelpful thoughts.

Whenever we do that, we'll experience more freedom, not only in our mind, but also in our lives. So as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us. And just inviting you to now settle in for today's meditation.