The Power of Labelling Our Thoughts and Feelings
This is a transcript of the video which has been edited for readability.
I've been increasing my meditation practice and gaining more experience. One of the tools that I found really useful to stay focused is this idea of labelling my thoughts and feelings.
During the meditation process, it’s natural that thoughts will come up since our brain seems like a thought-producing machine. And what I do whenever this happens is I just notice what thought comes up and I say to myself “thought.” Or in the case of a feeling, once I notice it, I just label it as “feeling.”
Once I'm able to label it, for some reason, poof, it just disappears. Then this practice allows me to get back to the present moment.
This is a really cool concept that I've been told of before, but it takes time to master. Finally, it's coming to me and I'm gaining more experience with it. It’s been incredibly useful and powerful, so I encourage you to also try it. Notice when you're thinking or when you're feeling, and being cognizant about it. Learn to just take a moment and label that process and it'll be really interesting to find out what happens for you.
If you’ve tried this out, let me know what you think about this in the comments down below.
It is easy to get caught up in our thoughts and feelings, and become attached to them. This can cause us to feel down or anxious, and prevents us from being present. A way to break this and get present is to label the thought and feeling as it comes up. Dr. Ko explains how in this quick blog post with video.