This is a meditation for intrusive thoughts.
Find a comfortable position.
Close your eyes or soften your gaze on a single point in front of you.
Take a deep breath in through your nose,
Filling your chest and belly expand and then hold it for a moment and exhale slowly through your mouth.
As you settle in,
Notice the weight of your body against the chair or the floor.
Feel the gravity pulling you down,
Anchoring you.
You are safe.
You are present.
In this space,
There is nothing that you need to fix and no thought that you need to solve.
Now acknowledge that your mind right now may be a busy place.
When an intrusive or a distressing thought appears,
We will acknowledge the thought.
Whenever we try to fight a thought,
We give it fuel.
Instead,
I would like you to imagine your mind is a flowing stream and as most streams,
It's filled with random debris,
Rocks or leaves.
Every thought,
Even the scary or repetitive ones,
They are just a temporary visitor on our way down the stream.
So as you sit in relaxation and stillness and you follow the breath in through your nose and back out again,
You become aware as a silent observer of the thoughts that flow by and as they flow by in the stream of thought.
Label it silently to yourself.
It may be a what-if thought,
A worrying thought,
A judging thought.
It might be an anxiety thought.
Obsessing,
Imagining or even an urge thought.
By labeling the streams of thought as they come and go,
You create a gap between you,
The observer,
And the thought,
The debris floating downstream.
You are the stream.
The thought is just passing through on flowing water.
Visualizing movement helps prevent these sticky thoughts from staying around too long.
Your mind is like a stream flowing with current.
Again,
Every time an intrusive thought,
An image or an urge enters your mind,
Imagine placing that thought on a large green leaf and you simply watch the leaf as the observer.
You watch the thought drift down the stream and fade into the distance.
You're not trying to control it or speed it up or stop it.
And if the same thought comes back again and again,
Put it on another leaf and watch it float by.
If your mind wanders,
As it will,
Or you get caught up in the story of the thought,
That's okay.
Just notice that you've been drawn in by your thoughts and gently return to feeling the flow of the stream.
The flow is calm and relaxed.
Releasing the thoughts down the steady flowing stream.
Some things to know about our thoughts.
Our thoughts need an audience and intrusive thoughts cannot hurt us.
Thoughts are just thoughts.
They are not reality,
Nor are they fact.
Thoughts do not define who you are.
Intrusive thoughts are unhelpful,
But you may find it helpful to have an affirmation saying to yourself,
My thoughts have no power over me unless I give them my attention.
Now as we close the meditation today,
Feel your body firmly in your seated position.
Notice the parts of your body that are touching the support beneath you.
If your posture has become more relaxed,
Lengthen your spine.
Sit a little taller.
If your eyes are closed or your gaze is in a soft focus,
Begin to slowly blink your eyes open and closed.
And with a light gaze,
Slowly turn to look around you,
See your surroundings.
And as you do,
Notice what three things that you can see and label them.
Begin to notice now sounds that you hear and name and label two sounds that you can hear in your space.
And lastly,
What's one thing that you can touch,
Feel its texture.
Now take another final deep breath in this meditation and let it go,
Carrying this sense of being the flowing observer of your thoughts with you into the rest of your day.
Remember,
You don't have to believe everything that you think.
