What (thought) radio station are you listening to?

If your thoughts were like a radio station, would they be an uplifting and joyful station that you’d want to crank up loud and dance to? Or a dreary talk-back type show that would have you reaching for the ‘off’ button?

Yesterday I gave you some simple ways to practice mindfulness, and one of the beautiful benefits of mindfulness is the ability to become more aware of your thoughts. You see, most of us spend a whole lot of time with our thoughts playing away in the background like a radio station on low volume. And when the volume’s low, we might not even be able to tell what kind of station we’re tuned in to.

I know from my own experience and through talking to many people that we spend a lot of time being unaware of our thoughts. And all too often, these thoughts we’re unaware of are more along the lines of the dreary talk-back radio station than the pumping dance party.

Newsflash: you can change the station!

When you become aware of your thoughts, you can look at them with curiosity and decide whether they are actually the thoughts you really want to think. And if they’re not, you can choose new ones!

I don’t know about you, but I was well into my 30's before I understood that I had the power to choose my thoughts. It was a massive revelation to me and to be honest, I was pretty shocked when I started to notice how often my thoughts were in fact dreary, negative, and generally un-resourceful. In fact, a lot of my thoughts were highly critical of myself and actually quite mean.

The first step to changing this is to begin to bring more focus and attention to your thoughts so you can decide if you want to choose new ones. If you don’t know what you’re already listening to, it’s hard to change the station.

I’ve done a lot of work on this myself and it’s something that I’m passionate about helping others with, so if this resonates with you please set up a call to talk about how I can support you.

Go well,

Ruth