What is your Narrator Saying?

This is one of my favourite concepts. It's also a fantastic way to add more mindfulness to your day.

We all have thoughts flying around in our heads most of the day. Thoughts about tasks that need accomplishing, work projects, social events, what to eat for dinner... those are taking care of your day-to-day responsibilities. Typically, you think them, accomplish them, and they disappear until the following day.

But in between the busy moments of your day... what is your internal monologue telling you? Maybe it's also talking to you while you are trying to accomplish daily tasks. However it shows up for you, next time you notice it, listen up.

Are you re-living a conversation or argument you had with a friend or partner?

How is that going? Are you winning?

How are you representing yourself in your imagination?

How are you representing them?

Is either accurate?

Are you complaining about something? Are you celebrating something? Are you grieving?

What kind of story about your life and the characters in it, are you telling yourself?

This is a really interesting and important thing to pay attention to. If you are spending an hour a day doing housework, and your mind is wandering around trying to keep you entertained... the content it is providing is going to affect you. If you're spending that hour telling yourself a story about how your friends don't care about you and you're unloved, that is going to feel like your reality.

Our brains are designed to support our beliefs. So if I spend a lot of idle time telling myself a negative story about my life, my brain is going look for evidence to try to prove me right. You can see how this could be detrimental. You spend that 20 minutes that you're cleaning the kitchen thinking about how you're unfit and unattractive, your brain is going to try to show you that is true. You spend that time telling yourself you're going to fail at whatever it is you're trying out, you will find evidence that you're failing. And those thoughts, that are being repeatedly sent through your brain, are strengthening the neuropathways in that particular thought pattern. So if you're spending a lot of idle mind time thinking negatively about someone/something, you will both a) find more evidence of that thought being true, and b) have a more difficult time changing that thought pattern to a more positive one.

Your thoughts genuinely affect your reality.

And I'm not saying dismiss all the negative thoughts you're having. If you catch yourself in a bit of a negative thought spiral, that is worth addressing. What brought you there, what needs aren't being met, what values are not being held, etc. This can also serve you. What I mean is be careful not to let that pattern take hold of all your mind's "free-time". This recognition of the chatter in your mind also serves to bring awareness back into the present moment, which is a useful mindfulness practice.

So what is your narrator saying to you about your life?

What are the stories that you're constantly hung up on?

Are you being kind to yourself in there?

Are you being fair to other people in there?

Are the things that you are thinking about useful to you in some way, or is it just repetitive noise?

How are you routinely making yourself feel?

Once you hear it, it becomes easier to recognize. And then you can decide if it's time to alter the script.

The more you pay attention, the easier it becomes. "Is this a useful thought?"