Everyday Practices
Step Back From the Story
For Seeing Thoughts as Thoughts
US$6 3 practices · 7 tracks · listen or download
Get the pack · US$6Some thoughts don’t feel like thoughts at all. A thought like ‘I’m not good enough’ shows up, and it feels like the plain truth about us. Before we know it, we’re looking at the whole day through it.
That’s being hooked, and it happens to all of us. The mind is doing its job, trying to keep us safe, and it doesn’t always get it right. Fighting the thought rarely helps either. The harder we push, the more it pushes back.
These practices help us step back, so a thought can be seen as a thought. Two of them use a simple picture to do it, a chessboard and a conveyor belt, followed by a short letter to the mind and a rhyming affirmation. The third is a short reflection in the first person, for when the mind tells us everyone else has it sorted.
Every track also comes in a shorter version. For the chessboard, you can have the letter or the picture on its own, each with the affirmation. The conveyor belt comes without the letter, and I Don’t Mind My Mind has a micro version.
What’s inside
The Chessboard
3 versions
Full version · 11 minLetter and affirmation · 7 minMetaphor and affirmation · 6 min
For when you’re caught in a battle with your own thoughts. You picture a chessboard, with positive thoughts on one side and negative ones on the other. Every positive move brings a negative one straight back, so the battle can’t be won. So what if you were the board, holding every piece without taking a side? Then a letter to your mind, and the affirmation ‘I am the chessboard. I’m calm and I’m wide.’ The shorter versions are the letter and affirmation, or the chessboard and affirmation, on their own.
The Conveyor Belt of the Mind
2 versions
Full version · 11 minWithout the letter · 8 min
For when the thoughts just keep coming. You picture a long, busy conveyor belt of thoughts heading towards you, each one in a box labelled helpful or unhelpful. Most of them say unhelpful, and that’s part of being human. Instead of grabbing every box or pushing it away, you watch the belt run and pick up the helpful ones. Then a letter to your mind, and the affirmation ‘I am the watcher observing in peace.’ The shorter version leaves out the letter.
I Don’t Mind My Mind
2 versions
Full version · 5 minMicro version · 3 min
For when your mind tells you it’s just you. This is a spoken reflection in the first person. It begins with the mind saying everyone else ‘seems to have it all okay’, and answers it: all humans mind. It brings in the old saying that the mind is an amazing servant and a terrible master, then moves towards noticing thoughts as thoughts and choosing to give energy to the helpful ones. The micro version keeps the opening and the servant and master idea, and ends on ‘thoughts as thoughts’.