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You are not your thoughts

Imagine seeing a flock of birds flying above your head. If they catch your eye, you might be curious about where they are going. Maybe you remark on the colour of their wings or even think that they are beautiful. But it’s unlikely that you would get emotionally wrapped up in the experience. You wouldn’t judge the birds for how well they fly. And once they had flown out of sight, you wouldn’t lie awake at night worrying about where they had gone.

Mindfulness takes this same approach and applies it to what’s going on inside us. Mindfulness suggests that the thoughts and feelings we experience are just like the birds in the sky. We can notice them flying over our heads, but we don’t have to let them nest in our hair.

Our thoughts and our feelings are not who we are. Our thoughts and feelings are things that we experience. We can simply and calmly notice them, and then watch them as they fly away.

The ability to notice our thoughts and feelings, and to see them for what they are – experiences that will pass, rather than facts that define us – may not come easily or naturally to us. But it is a skill that everyone can learn. It allows us to question whether what we are thinking or feeling is true for us now, or just an old pattern we’ve fallen into.

More than that, noticing lets us ask: is this really who I am?