ABSTRACT
Mindfulness is about learning to take a step back and notice that thoughts come and go, without getting caught up in them. Do you ever find your thoughts race ahead seeing every possible negative outcome? Or you dwell on a mistake you have made? Or your thoughts keep going back over what you should have said and done? With mindfulness, we can just notice these are thoughts without getting onto the roller coaster of following wherever our mind leads. Wouldn’t that be a great skill to have? When we take a step back from the thought we can more easily notice the consequences of it, for example that it can lead to an emotion, a sensation or an urge. So the thought: ‘I have forgotten my keys’ may be followed by a feeling of anxiety and the urge to check our pockets.
