Today is THOUGHTS DAY.

Many of us find thoughts to be the biggest challenge in meditation. Even when we instruct our mind to pay attention to the breath for just a few seconds, our mind can find a way to engage us in a story. A few seconds or minutes later, we remember we’re supposed to be focusing on the breath, and we come back. 

Our inner dialogue rarely stops because our mind has evolved to think, plan and rationalise. The voice in our head helped our ancestors gain an element of control over nature, and this gift helped the human race survive and thrive. 

Unfortunately, the constant stream of thoughts is a source of suffering for many of us. Probably because many of our thoughts are regrets about the past and worries about the future. 

The goal of Mindfulness Meditation is not to stop our thoughts. The goal is to become aware of our thoughts and to be mindful of how we respond to those thoughts. Our goal is to change our relationship to our thoughts so that the thoughts don’t control us. 

Instead of treating thoughts as distractions, in today’s meditation, we are going to bring awareness to the thinking process itself. We are going to practice allowing our thoughts to come and go, without resisting them, without fighting them, and without getting caught up in the stories behind them.