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Thoughts Don't Drive Behavior

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about the relationship between thoughts and behavior. Now, a lot of people think that thoughts drive behavior. We have a thought and then it activates us to do something. However, it's not that simple.

Thoughts don't actually drive behavior. Thoughts trigger feelings in the body that then drive behavior. And because of that, you can not live an intentional life without being attuned to what's happening in your body. That makes me think of that quote that's often attributed to Viktor Frankl. " Between stimulus and response there's a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response. And then in our response lies our growth, our freedom and our happiness." Well, the actual stimulus that is going to create some sort of behavior is not the thought itself. It's going to be the thought that triggers a certain emotion. And so, we need to be able to feel what is arising in our bodies, the anger that is coming up in our chest in this moment. And that that anger is causing us to feel like, oh, I'm, I'm jumping out of my skin.

I need to say something. Have you had that experience before? It's like, I got to get this out. And so it's that feeling that then causes us to say something that maybe an hour later we realized, oh, I shouldn't have said that. It's not the thought, I'm angry at this person. It's the thought that then triggers the emotion and it's that fire and that heat in our body that then triggers some sort of response or some sort of behavior.

So as you consider what it looks like to live your life more mindfully, and especially in the context of making behavior change and learning to inhabit that space between stimulus and response, really see if you can pay attention to what is arising in your body moment to moment, and see if you can feel how it makes you want to react in a certain way. The way to work with that is just start with awareness and then take a deep breath. Feel the tension. Feel the urge. Feel that volition moving through you.

Take a deep breath. And ask yourself, how do I really want to respond in this moment? And often that can be enough to allow you to respond at least a little more intentionally rather than reactively. So the key takeaway here: thoughts don't drive behavior, thoughts trigger feelings in the body that drive behavior. And we can not live an intentional life without being attuned to what's arising in our body. Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.

Cory Muscara

4.7

Thoughts Don't Drive Behavior

Personalized support for learning how to integrate mindfulness into your life. Delivered fresh everyday by our world renowned experts. Choose meditation duration:

Duration

Your default time is based on your progress and is changed automatically as you practice.

Hi, welcome back to your Daily Mindfulness. In today's session, we're going to talk about the relationship between thoughts and behavior. Now, a lot of people think that thoughts drive behavior. We have a thought and then it activates us to do something. However, it's not that simple.

Thoughts don't actually drive behavior. Thoughts trigger feelings in the body that then drive behavior. And because of that, you can not live an intentional life without being attuned to what's happening in your body. That makes me think of that quote that's often attributed to Viktor Frankl. " Between stimulus and response there's a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response. And then in our response lies our growth, our freedom and our happiness." Well, the actual stimulus that is going to create some sort of behavior is not the thought itself. It's going to be the thought that triggers a certain emotion. And so, we need to be able to feel what is arising in our bodies, the anger that is coming up in our chest in this moment. And that that anger is causing us to feel like, oh, I'm, I'm jumping out of my skin.

I need to say something. Have you had that experience before? It's like, I got to get this out. And so it's that feeling that then causes us to say something that maybe an hour later we realized, oh, I shouldn't have said that. It's not the thought, I'm angry at this person. It's the thought that then triggers the emotion and it's that fire and that heat in our body that then triggers some sort of response or some sort of behavior.

So as you consider what it looks like to live your life more mindfully, and especially in the context of making behavior change and learning to inhabit that space between stimulus and response, really see if you can pay attention to what is arising in your body moment to moment, and see if you can feel how it makes you want to react in a certain way. The way to work with that is just start with awareness and then take a deep breath. Feel the tension. Feel the urge. Feel that volition moving through you.

Take a deep breath. And ask yourself, how do I really want to respond in this moment? And often that can be enough to allow you to respond at least a little more intentionally rather than reactively. So the key takeaway here: thoughts don't drive behavior, thoughts trigger feelings in the body that drive behavior. And we can not live an intentional life without being attuned to what's arising in our body. Thank you for your practice.

Let's settle in for today's meditation.

Cory Muscara

Cory Muscara

4.7

Duration

Cory Muscara

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