It can be difficult to stay mindful of our thoughts. When we try to pay attention to our thoughts, our thoughts often carry our minds away. And this is the opposite of mindfulness. The Mindfulness of Sounds and Thoughts exercise mentioned in the previous video is a guided meditation that leads us through a few ways we can practice being mindful of our thoughts.
In the Mindfulness of Sounds and Thoughts meditation, we begin with a period of mindful hearing, and then we turn our attention to our thinking, relating to our thoughts the same way we did to sound. Rather than paying attention to the content of our thoughts and what they mean, we simply notice thoughts arising, and sustaining, and passing through the thoughtscape of our minds, watching them coming and going like clouds passing through the sky.
In this meditation, after mindfully following sounds for a while, we then turn our attention to our thoughts and practice relating to them in a similar fashion. Rather than engaging with the thoughts we’re having and getting caught up in them or thinking about them, we simply notice what thoughts are present, and just treat them as mental events moving through our field of awareness.
Mindfulness of Sounds and Thoughts Guided Meditation
Mindfulness of Sounds and Thoughts (Extended Version)
If you’d like to learn more about mindfulness, please check out my Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindfulness Meditation courses. If you have any questions or comments, please leave them on the YouTube video page.