Lost in Thought, Practicing Awareness & Opening Up the Mind

The Mindful Minute

By Pema Sherpa & Brendan Barca

Age-old wisdom for modern living. Each week you'll get 1 quote, 1 reflection and 1 action to help you lead a calmer, clearer, and more conscious life.

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Quote:

"Every time we become aware of a thought, as opposed to being lost in a thought, we experience that opening of the mind.”

- Joseph Goldstein

Reflection:

We spend our lives hopping from one thought to the next. Why did I say that in yesterday's week's meeting? — Maybe I should grab a second coffee — I wonder what my new employee thinks of me — I look terrible in this new haircut. All day our mind runs on one continuous train of thoughts, storylines, judgments, and insecurities. We ride this train with hardly any awareness around what these thoughts are or what they might be doing to our subconscious. We just accept the thoughts as part of who we are.

But if we can develop the skill to watch our thoughts and become more aware of all these storylines that we're telling ourselves then we can start to slow the train down. We can begin to see that we aren't our thoughts at all. And instead of getting lost in them, we can correct or redirect them or let them just roll on by. Every time we become aware of a thought, our mind opens just a tiny bit and we see there's opportunity for positively changing our state of being.

Action:

Today, practice watching your thoughts. Any time you catch yourself judging, desiring, second-guessing, self-deprecating, or making up a story, take a step back and examine it. Ask yourself: Who is thinking this? Is this even true? Is this thought helpful? Then just let it pass and get ready to catch the next one. Every time you catch a thought you're improving your awareness and opening up your mind.

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Have a mindful Wednesday and see you next week!

- Pema & Brendan

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