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To understand your thoughts, start your meditation sessions by focusing on your breath. Once you feel calmer and have focused on your breath for a few minutes, let your mind loose. Earlier, you had to focus on just your breath so your mind id not wander off in to thought. Here, we have lifted that restriction and you are free to think whatever you want.
Carefully observe a thought as it enters your mind without labeling it a good or bad, negative or positive, healthy or unhealthy. If you sport a certain thought that makes you feel strongly about something and one that affects your life in a certain way, hold on to it and try to explore it.
If a thought suggests, I have never accomplished my goals, no wonder no one in my social circle respects me, perceive this thought for what it is, a mere thought.
Do not label it a negative or positive thought. Mediation teaches you to perceive everything for what it is, a feeling as a feeling, a though as thought and an emotion as ns emotion. This is how you learn to detach yourself from negative or unhealthy emotions and thoughts and give them undue importance. If you feel that people do not respect you because you have not accomplished anything worthwhile, explore this thought and seek to understand it. Is it because you have not fulfilled your goals or are you over exaggeration a criticism someone threw at you? The more you explore a certain thought, the better you will understand the root cause of your anxiety-triggering thoughts and the faster you shall get to the root of the problem.
Write down your findings in a journal and then go through them repeatedly, this will help you know yourself better.
Practice this every day and you will find out what your thoughts really mean. You will learn to dissociate from stress activating thoughts and feelings and will start identifying the issues that make it difficult to achieve your goals.
With time, you will start becoming calmer and happier. As you become better at analyzing your thoughts, incorporate mindfulness meditation into everything you do. This habit is one you need to nurture to develop a healthy mindset.
