If you can only walk away with one thing as you learn about mindfulness.
What I'm about to tell you is it,
And if you truly get it and start paying attention to it,
It is life changing.
And that is that your thoughts are not always factual.
You don't have to believe everything you think.
And you are not your thoughts.
Becoming mindful and aware of the fact that our thoughts are just things that happen.
Automatically,
Like breathing,
Or sneezing,
Or blinking,
Creates a little space between ourselves and the thoughts.
And in that space.
We get to decide.
Is this thought helpful or harmful?
Is it productive or destructive?
Is it true or is it just something I've been thinking for so long that I've never stopped to challenge it?
And here's the beauty of it.
If we decide that it's destructive.
Non-empowering.
And not true?
We can reject that thought.
We can dismiss that thought.
We don't have to buy what it's selling.
Once we start being mindful of our thoughts,
Assessing them for their quality,
Paying attention to the quantity,
We become the boss of us.
We're not living on autopilot anymore.
We get to be conscious,
Deliberate creators of our life and our behaviors and our experience.
Rather than just being along for the ride.
And this is an absolutely beautiful.
Liberating.
Self-empowering thing that also may be a little scary at first because we realize we're not just a victim of life.
We're not just a victim of circumstance.
We get to make choices here and making choices takes effort and energy,
But I promise you it is so worth it.
So the very first mindfulness lesson And if it's the only lesson,
As I said at the beginning.
That I want you to really ingest is that you don't have to believe everything you think.
You are not your thoughts.
You are the one who notices your thoughts.
