Popping Out of Your Thoughts

Have you ever meditated? I made a goal for February. My goal for this month is to establish a consistent meditation practice. I am committed to 10 minutes every day for the month of February.

As of this moment, I am on day 4, and I am in love. I look forward to that time everyday. I wake up at 6:45 each morning, throw on my comfy clothes and go downstairs. I pop in my earphones and spend ten minutes listening to the Calm meditation app, breathing and watching my thoughts.

I’m a little embarrassed that I haven’t jumped on this bandwagon before now. Many of the other life coaches that I know meditate religiously. In all my research, I learned about the amazing benefits that come with meditation and mindfulness practice. Benefits like, decreased anxiety and depression, increased empathy for others, better focus, improved relationships, it even has been shown to decrease the perception of pain. 

So, better late than never, right? I’m here and I’m on board.

One of the first practices I’ve gone through describes the concept of popping out of your thoughts. Now this idea, I have been in love with for a long time. This is my coaching bread and butter. I teach this concept to my clients and on this blog all the time. Let me show you what this looks like.

When we meditate, we focus on a single thing. For me, I like to focus on my breath.

I love the feel of air running through my nostrils, down into my chest and pushing my diaphragm down and out. I feel like a balloon, gently expanding and resolving. It feels so good to me. 

But inevitably, my mind starts throwing up thoughts. 

Everything from what I have planned for the day to wondering if purple was really the best choice to paint my nails. 

Part of the practice of meditation is training your mind to notice when you fallen back into your thoughts, and then gently pop back out. 

This concept is the foundation for the work that I do as a coach. It is helping my clients see that they are not their thoughts. Our brains are designed to throw out all kinds of thoughts, 60-120 thousand thoughts a day. And we get to pick which ones we are going to hold onto and believe. All thoughts are optional. 

So when we can take a moment to just sit, close our eyes, focus on the breath, and recognize the truth that we are not our thoughts, we can approach our lives from a place of such power. We become grounded in our reactions and decisions. We can face any situation that comes up, because we know that we can choose thoughts that are going to move us forward, always. 

This concept alone is life changing when you put it into practice. This is the concept that drastically changed how I show up in my marriage, even when difficult things came up. It enabled me to have the strength to make changes happen when I was terrified that doing so would destroy my marriage. 

Do you feel like your thoughts are running the show in your life? If so, let’s talk. If you click the button below, you can schedule a free coaching session where I can show you just how powerful this simple practice can be. It is the difference between staying stuck, and creating the life you really want. We can do it together. I’ll show you how.