You Are Not Your Thoughts - Free Yourself from Mind
Did you know that the average person has about 60,000 thoughts per day. As many as 98 percent of them are exactly the same as the day before and 80 percent of those repeated thoughts are negative.
That means you have over 47,000 negative thoughts on loop. That's a whole lotta negativity.
This becomes a big problem when we identify as our thoughts. When our identity becomes wrapped up in our thoughts we are confining our spirits to a tiny caged reality built within the fragility of our minds. We live in a (mostly negative) loop, pacing back and forth, not realizing the door to our freedom is wide open. To walk through the door, we must first learn how to unidentify with our thoughts and set our spirits free.
If we are not our minds, what are we?
When I first heard the concept that we are not what we think, I was left asking, what are we then?? I had spent so much of my life living from the neck up (entirely in my head) that I could not conceive of how to be anything other than my mind.
It was my brain that knew how to think, communicate, and process sensations in the body. And my body was simply the vessel that took my mind from one transition to the next, right?
Not quite. Most of us walk through life identifying as mind and/or body when we are truly neither.
What are we then?
We are spirits. We HAVE a mind and occupy a body, which allows us to live the human experience. And yet, rather than using the mind and body as tools, they have become our prisons, limiting our spirits to a very finite time and space.
Our spirits are ready to be free.
How to separate from our thoughts
Name the Thought
The first step in separating from our thoughts is to name them. When a thought comes, we can learn to say, "oh look, a thought. This thought represents sadness or fear or anticipation or…”. We are not claiming our thoughts as who we are - I am sad. I am worried, etc. - but rather acknowledging that they are a temporary experience of our minds.
Create Space
Next, create space for our thoughts. We can invite the thought, and the feelings that accompany it, inside. The attention it takes to stop a thought often backfires for where attention goes, energy flows. However, when we simply make space for them to exist alongside us, we acknowledge their presence without exerting energy to change what is.
Observe without Judgment
Finally, we must observe without judgement. To observe what we feel without making a claim on if it is bad, good, silly, etc. allows the root of the issue to reveal itself from a non-emotional place, allowing us to remain unidentified with the thought itself. From an unidentified state, we can respond with compassion to our thought, our feelings, and ourselves.
Release the thought
And when we are ready, we can release the thoughts by returning to our breath. Take a moment to sit in stillness and feel the breath (that’s the spirit’s presence in your body!) filling up your belly, your lungs, and the space behind your face. Hold it at the top and then fully release all the energy stored in that breath. Continue mindfully breathing until your mind is quiet and your body is relaxed.
The spirit inside you is pure love. It is the source of abundance and connection. When we can release our thoughts and rediscover our spirit, we become free. And in that freedom, eternal joy becomes available
