Mindfulness in Action: Lessons from Observing my Thoughts
It’s time to tell yourself a new story
I have been obsessed with witnessing my habitual thoughts recently. Noticing the ways I create the same story over and over again in my head. Observing (when I am able to catch it) how I will loop back to the same mental grooves that have been traveled one million gazillion times before. (By the way, this is actually what is happening in your brain - “neurons that fire together, wire together” - aka the more you think a thought, the more likely you are to continue thinking that thought.)
It's to the point of being incredibly frustrating!! Like fu** why am I over here in this brain groove AGAIN?! I know better!!
In essence, this is mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to the present moment without judgment. When I am observing my thought patterns, I am endeavoring to observe how my thoughts are behaving in the present moment. Ideally without judgment, but you know I am only human and doing my best!
This is a practice I have been cultivating now for over a decade. I learned my first mindfulness practice during graduate school (to get my Masters of Social Work) in my Acceptance and Commitment Therapy class during which we would practice mindfulness for the first 10 minutes of every class. In fact, I structured my entire graduate program to focus primarily on mindfulness-based therapies.
Back in 2013, this was cutting edge stuff. Mindfulness was a concept in the therapy world that was gaining traction. These therapies recognized that a healthy psychology is less about changing your thoughts, and more about having enough space between you and your thoughts to see them as just that: thoughts. Not the truth, not reality, not the foundation on which to make all our decisions.
The first step is mindfulness. If you don’t even know what your thoughts are and how they color your mood, your beliefs about yourself and the world, and therefore how you live, how can you make any changes? You have to be able to witness your thoughts in order to understand that you, in fact, are separate from your thoughts. The you that can observe thoughts is not the thoughts. This making sense?
So, while I have been practicing mindfulness through a variety of modalities and practices over the last decade plus, I recognize that sometimes I have more awareness and sometimes I have less. Recently, I have been really paying attention and…
I have made some clear observations about my habitual thought patterns:
Some familiar pathways I travel are not helpful anymore. They are too negative, too protective, too fear-mongering. This is not shaming, these pathways were created for an adaptive reason, but it is also okay to choose to grow beyond them now.
These thoughts create a physical sensation in my body that leads to heightened emotions and physical symptoms. Fatigue is a big one for me - more stress = more fatigue. (Side note - this is why any chronic illness/burnout/fatigue recovery requires inner, nervous system work - you can learn more about the work I do in this niche here)
Even though I know these are not helpful paths to travel down, I keep returning because it is familiar and familiar feels safer than the unknown.
Even though I know creating new brain grooves that are more positive, abundant, and expansive is “correct”, it feels unfamiliar and my protective parts have me diving for safety. What this means that when I experience more expansiveness and possibility, I better believe a part of my brain is going to try to pull me back down to safety.
Although it's incredibly frustrating to be so aware of how my thoughts sabotage me, the win is noticing that this is happening. If I don't even know that my thoughts are creating a result I don't want, then I am just living in the result I don't want without awareness. Without awareness there is no opportunity to change and evolve.
This work is the heart of any personal practice - mindfulness, yoga, personal development, therapy. And the good news is that we have our entire lifetime to practice 😉
So…this week, notice your familiar paths. Where do you find yourself repeating the same story about a person, a situation, or yourself? What is the impact (physically, emotionally, spiritually) of these stories? Can you try on a new story for size?
And if you want to explore receiving support on your path, please look into working with me.
