Everyday Practices
Finding Your Way Through the Fog
For Clearer Sight When Thinking Gets Heavy
US$6 3 practices · 5 tracks · listen or download
Get the pack · US$6Some days the thinking gets heavy. Worries about what’s coming, old mistakes, the old feeling that we’re not enough. It settles over everything like fog, and it’s hard to see where we’re going.
We can’t make the fog lift by force. Trying usually makes it thicker. What we can do is notice it for what it is: thoughts, coming and going. Underneath them we’re still here, and so is what matters to us.
Two of these practices use a simple picture to help with that, a lighthouse in the fog and a pair of tinted sunglasses. Each ends with a short letter to your mind and a rhyming affirmation. The third is a two-minute talk with one simple tool for stepping back from a thought.
Two of the tracks come in a shorter version. For the lighthouse, that’s the picture and the affirmation without the letter. For the sunglasses, it’s the letter and the affirmation on their own.
What’s inside
Tinted Sunglasses
2 versions
Full version · 10 minLetter and affirmation · 7 min
For when a thought colours everything you see. Thoughts are like tinted sunglasses. Through yellow lenses the day looks bright, through dark grey ones it looks gloomy, and if you forget you’re wearing them you might dress for the beach in the rain. You’re invited to take them off now and then, and to notice the thought as a lens you’re looking through. Then a letter to your mind, from someone who once ‘despised’ it, and a rhyming affirmation. The shorter version is the letter and affirmation on their own.
The Lighthouse and the Fog
2 versions
Full version · 10 minWithout the letter · 6 min
For when unhelpful thoughts cloud everything. You’re a ship at sea in thick fog, unsure of your direction. Then a lighthouse appears in the distance. Its light is your values, and you can steer by it while the fog swirls around you. You’re asked what your own lighthouse might be, and what small step it points to. Then a letter to your mind, and the affirmation ‘I anchor myself in my values today.’ The shorter version leaves out the letter.
Stepping Back
3 min
A simple tool for getting a little distance from a thought. You put the words ‘I’m noticing the thought that…’ in front of it, so ‘I’m not good enough’ becomes ‘I’m noticing the thought that I’m not good enough.’ There’s a short silence to try it with a thought of your own. Then a two-step process: use the sentence, then come back to a chosen point of connection. It finishes by asking you to use it only if it actually helps.