Pay Attention!

"I could've done better."
"Nobody likes me."
"Everyone else seems to have a life plan except me."
"I could never do that."
"Everything in life comes hard."
"I'm doomed to be alone forever."

Are you paying attention to the messages you tell yourself daily? Let alone the barrage of messages pounding down on us by media and advertising. How do you imagine those thoughts might be impacting your choices every day, every hour, every  minute. Negative thoughts often became negative stories and ultimately ways of being. I'm a believer that our thoughts create our reality. Whatever you think you can or can't do, whoever you think you are or are not, you're probably right. 

Have you ever tried separating yourself from your thoughts or do you believe you are one and the same? Granted, many of us had to develop a certain way of thinking in order to make sense of our world and survive our young, often dysfunctional environments.  Unfortunately, once out of that environment and adult, we never get around to updating and revising our thinking. Once we can make the unconscious conscious, we have more control and options before us. This takes a certain amount of self awareness and mindfulness practice.  Inside each of us is the writer scripting the thoughts and there is also the one listening to them. What if the one listening began to question what they were hearing? 

Try this:
The next time you have a negative self deprecating thought, see if you can:

• PAUSE and PAY ATTENTION.
  
• Is that thought really your voice or does it sound like a parent or authority figure from years ago?
  
• Separate yourself from identifying with the thought.
  
• You can even name that part of the self which is scripting these thoughts if it helps you separate from them. (ex. "critic," "dooms day dan," "witchy one," "drunk mom," "jerk."
  
• Put that thought "on trial." 
  
• Is there really, truly concrete evidence that your thought is a reality, based on factual evidence? Or rather an exaggeration?
  
• Once you realize that thought is likely not based on fact, you can acknowledge it and let it go.