Photo Credit: Keegan Houser
Bring more peace and space into your life by adopting this 8 minute daily practice. Just listen to the recording and follow along each morning. Then remember to respond to three or more unpleasant thoughts or feelings by taking a mindful pause and reminding yourself, “This is lawful. This belongs. May I use this for my liberation.”
Below the recording, you’ll find:
Tips to help you implement this practice
The many insights you will gain by doing this practice.
The many skills you will develop by doing this practice.
A transcript of the recording for your reference.
Enjoy!
Top Tips
• Prerequisite: Have a daily Mindful Pause practice. We recommend you use the Mindful Pause Slogan Guide for a week or longer before starting this practice.
• Listen to and implement this Slogan Guide recording every morning. It will help you set a strong intention to take three or more mindful pauses throughout your day, and help you learn how to deactivate your thoughts so they do not cause you to suffer.
• Use the slogan “Breathe” to remind you to do this practice. Hang the slogan “Breathe” in your bathroom, on the refrigerator, at work, in your car, and in other locations that you visit frequently to remind you to take mindful pauses throughout your day.
• Give this practice your full attention. Do not listen to the Slogan Guide recording while doing anything else.
• Do this practice daily for a week or longer. Continue the practice until your mind starts to relate to your difficult thoughts with more mindful peace and ease.
Why do this practice?
Listening to this recording daily, will help you develop the following insights and practice the following skills that will utterly transform your life.
If what you read here makes no sense to you, be patient and kind with yourself and my writing. Through practice and repetition, what I am saying will become more clear to you, and the power it gives you over your inner life, will become apparent.
Insights Developed:
• We will experientially start to see that our minds are biologically conditioned to mistake our thoughts to be personal, truthful, important, and durable, thereby activating our thoughts. Because activated thoughts cause us to suffer, we start to fear our thoughts, or judge ourselves for thinking these thoughts, which magnifies those thoughts activation. However, this activation is not our fault and through this practice we can start to learn how to deactivate our thoughts. Our mind has a biologically conditioned My-Thoughts-Are-True Bias, causing most of our thoughts to be "activated." Again, it is not our fault that we mistake our thoughts to be personal, truthful, important, and durable. Nor is it our fault that we fear such thoughts, or judge ourselves for thinking, but this practice helps us change all of this.
• We will start to learn the patterns of activated self-judgmental thoughts. Judgmental thoughts are unkind. Because judgmental thoughts are unkind, activated self-judgmental thoughts cause mental and emotional suffering by causing us to feel shame, self-hatred, overwhelm, and other afflictive emotions. These (typically activated) emotions then cause us to act out in ways that harm ourselves and others. The more we observe how self-judgment works, the more we see the pattern that self-judgmental thoughts do not foster peace, contentment, compassion, healing, or skillful behavior, nor do they allow us to live up to our full potential. In later classes we will experientially learn another pattern of self-judgment: if a thought is unkind, it is not true.
• We will experientially understand the nature of thoughts to be conditioned, impersonal, temporary, mental formations that cannot harm us. Understanding the nature of thoughts will help us deactivate them.
• We will experience how thoughts mindfully viewed to be "just thoughts" are deactivated. Deactivated thoughts no longer have the power to cause mental and emotional suffering or cause us to behave in ways that harm ourselves or others.
• We will see the different patterns between activated and deactivated self-judgmental thoughts. We activate our thoughts by mistaking them to be truthful, personal, and durable, and by fearing them or judging ourselves for thinking them. When a thought is activated, it causes mental and emotional suffering, and leads to behavior that harms ourselves and others. We deactivate a thought by mindfully remembering that it is an impersonal, temporary, mental formation that cannot harm us, and by mindfully relating to it with compassion and curiosity. When a thought is deactivated, it does not cause mental and emotional suffering, and allows us to respond skillfully to whatever is arising in the present moment.
Skills Learned
• We practice taking mindful pauses throughout our day. These mini-meditations help us soothe our nervous system and infuse our day with more mindfulness and resilience.
• We practice mindfully seeing "thoughts as just thoughts" and learning how to deactivate our thoughts. Deactivated thoughts do not cause us mental and emotional suffering nor do they cause us to behave unskillfully.
• We practice relating to our thoughts with compassion and curiosity, not judgment and fear. Fearing thoughts, or judging ourselves for thinking thoughts, activates those thoughts. By understanding that our thoughts are culturally and biologically conditioned and that we do not have full control over our thinking, we can stop judging ourselves for thinking these thoughts. By understanding that thoughts cannot harm us if we don't believe, identify, or fear them, we can stop fearing them and allow them to be.
• We develop dual awareness of both thoughts and reality. Thoughts are mental formations in the mind, not the truth. Reality is what we perceive though our senses in the present moment, when our mind is free of all activated mental formations. Seeing the difference between thoughts and reality helps us develop the dual awareness we need to be more peaceful, healthy, and loving.
Other Benefits
• You will develop a list of your self-judgmental thoughts. You can use this list in future Mindfulness Fundamental classes to investigate and discover all of the ways they are not true.
Now Test It
Can such a simple practice really give a person all of these benefits? Test it and see! Do this practice diligently, every morning, out of love for yourself and all life.
As you explore your inner life, notice the patterns. Notice what you can control and what you are unable to control. Experientially learn the difference between an activated thought and a deactivated thought. Experientially learn how to deactivate your thoughts.
I believe in you. Through loving and persistent actions, you will see results. Be diligent and be kind to yourself and see how these skills and insights benefit your life.
May love and wisdom guide and protect you,
Freeman
Transcript of Recording
We start by thinking "breathe" and taking a mindful pause.
Wonderful. Peacefully continue this mindful pause during our reflections.
Kindly do this practice in a safe place. If you start to become dysregulated, immediately stop the practice, open your eyes, and do the Dual Awareness Protocol.
Lovingly do your best to follow the prompts and pay attention. If something does not make sense, be compassionate and gentle with yourself. Trust that understanding will come with practice and repetition.
Defining Judgment
Today we explore how to relate to unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and moods mindfully with compassion and curiosity, free of judgment and fear.
Judgment is an umbrella term we use to refer to unpleasant thoughts that evaluate, blame, or shame one's self or others with the intent to wound, humiliate, or control. Judgmental thoughts create a false hierarchy between life forms, declaring some worthy of love and respect, and others deserving of contempt and cruelty.
Self-judgmental thoughts berate our own worth, dignity, and value.
Exploring The Conditioned Nature of Self-Judgmental Thoughts: Letting Go of Judgment
From your list, or from memory, choose a self-judgmental thought that you regularly think, and that you can think about while staying peaceful, calm, and regulated. If able, choose a different self-judgmental thought each time you do this practice.
Having chosen a self-judgmental thought, gently reflect: At the moment of my birth, did this thought exist in my mind?
We learn thoughts and ways of thinking from the people and media around us, which means this self-judgmental thought was learned. It was culturally conditioned into your mind.
Kindly ask yourself: Do I fully control the comments of the people around me, or the content of the media I am exposed to?
If not, then this conditioned thought is impersonal. This thought was created by forces outside of your control.
Lovingly reflect: Given that this thought is culturally conditioned, impersonal, and outside of my control, is it healthy, useful, or kind to judge myself for thinking it?
Or is it more healthy, useful, and kind to relate to this thought and myself peacefully, with compassion and empathy?
Exploring the Harmless Nature of Deactivated Self-Judgmental Thoughts: Letting Go of Fear
Let's now investigate the nature of this thought.
Calmly consider: Do I always think this thought?
Put another way, is this thought permanent or temporary?
If I calmly allow the thought to arise and be, will it go away on its own?
Is this thought physical or mental in nature?
Can this thought physically punch, hit, kick, or injure me?
When we resist, believe, or identify with a self-judgmental thought, it causes mental and emotional suffering, and it prods us to behave in ways that harm ourselves and others.
Compassionately ask yourself: Has this thought caused me to suffer and/or behave unskillfully in the past?
When I mindfully remember that thoughts are impersonal, temporary, mental formation that cannot harm me, does this decrease the mental and emotional suffering caused by this thought?
Given that thoughts are impersonal, temporary, mental formations that cannot harm me, is it healthy, useful, or kind to fear them?
Or is it more healthy, useful, or kind to relate to this thought and myself peacefully, with compassion and empathy?
Summary
To summarize: Because "what you resist, persists," offer self-judgmental thoughts no resistance. Do not fear self-judgmental thoughts, and do not judge yourself for thinking them. Instead, allow all thoughts to arise and be. They are lawful. They belong.
Recognize self-judgmental thoughts to be "just thoughts." Don't mistake self-judgmental thoughts to be truthful, lasting, or personal. Instead, see thoughts as impersonal, temporary, mental formation in the mind that cannot harm you.
In future classes, you will see that if a thought is unkind, it is not true. For now, practice allowing all thoughts to be, and relating to them peacefully with compassion and curiosity, and a mindful understanding that thoughts cannot harm you.
Setting Loving Intentions to Take Mindful Pauses Throughout the Day
Next, out of love for ourselves and all life, we set some skillful intentions for the day.
Repeat after me, out loud, if able: When an unpleasant thought or feeling arises, I will take a mindful pause and remind myself, "This is lawful. This belongs. May I use this for my liberation."
Brilliant.
Again, and really mean what you say: When an unpleasant thought or feeling arises I will take a mindful pause and remind myself, "This is lawful. This belongs. May I use this for my liberation."
Excellent.
Aim to do three or more of these mindful pauses today, whenever you remember to.
Also, write down any self-judgmental thoughts you think, and maintain a list of them. We will be working from this list in future practices.
Encouragement and Blessings
Practice makes proficiency. Do your best, and success will follow.
Be patient and persistent in your meditation and slogan practices, and you will reap the rewards of your efforts and repetitions.
I love you and Life loves you. May you live your day mindfully in joyful service to truth, love, and life.