Dear Felix:

When the thoughts appear in your brain in the morning, don’t get scared of the thoughts. Try to view thoughts in a different way than how you viewed them so far: thoughts are mental events, invisible biochemical events that are temporary in nature. Every person has many thousands of thoughts every day, they come and go. Key is to not get scared of a thought and get stuck thinking and thinking. Key is to understand more and more that thoughts are not dangerous.

I highly recommend that every morning (and at other times) you listen to Mark William’s “Mindfulness meditation Listening & Thoughts”. You can find it free online. Part of what he says in this meditation is to observe your thoughts as they come, stay awhile and then go, like clouds passing across the sky; your mind is like the sky, your thoughts like the clouds. The clouds come and go, but the sky remains. See thoughts as events that are rising in the mind, stay around for a while, and then dispersing. Be open to your thoughts and your emotions, whatever they are. Observe your thoughts and feelings instead of getting lost in them. When you do get lost, gently return to observing them.

anita