The Value of a Thought

In meditation every thought is of equal value. 

When we sit in meditation we discover that the thoughts that pass us by are just that, they are thoughts. There is no thought to beat yourself up over, and no thought to get pulled into. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve come up with the answer to your latest problem, or you simply got distracted by something insignificant, in meditation, all thoughts are of equal value. 

What an empowering concept!? Can you imagine, if you paused for long enough in your active daily life, and witnessed every single thought that came through you, and let them each pass by as though they all held the same level of importance. I find this wildly freeing. The ability to step aside from the weight that you give to any passing thought, and choose how much importance you can give it. That is up to you. That is up to me. We do in fact have that power. That power comes from meditation. 

If everyday we allowed ourselves to take control over the thoughts that come and go by deciding how much weight or value we will give to them, it seems to me life would be wildly different. It would mean each of us taking our own innate power back within ourselves. 

To choose to analyze your thoughts, is a beautiful gift. You can pick up a thought, ask yourself if it’s really true, take a look at how you feel when you believe this thought, and then consider what your life might be like without that thought? {see Byron Katie’s The Work for more detailed breakdown of examining your thoughts in this way}

Once you’ve taken a look at the thought, the belief you’ve been giving power, then it’s decision day. Here you choose how much power you want to give this thought. When I’m working with private clients, something that often comes up is the concept of binary decisions. Our brains often make us believe that the decision is black or it’s white. But it is often, if not likely, that the decision lies in the grey. It can be hard to see that grey area on our own sometimes because our brains have categorized the decision as only being possible in one lane or another. But it’s when we look at the grey that we discover an abundance of opportunities exist there

I  have found no better way of doing this than meditation. Breathwork is amazing, you all know I love working in that space, but practicing alongside a meditation practice, I find the synchronicity between my head and heart really helps me understand what thoughts I am giving value to, and what thoughts deserve that time and attention. It’s because of meditation that I can see more of the possibility that lives in the grey. My meditation practice takes about 20 minutes in the morning. Twenty minutes is all it takes for me to have this ability to feel within my body the power I’m giving to thoughts over the course of the day. I find this incredibly empowering. 

You have the ability to choose how much weight you give to any given thought on any given day. Change your thoughts, change your life.