Name Thoughts, Release Stress

When the same thought keeps repeating, this meditation helps you step back instead of spiraling. You’ll practice naming thoughts and gently returning to your breath. A simple, practical tool for stress, overthinking, and busy minds.

Why this helps? Labeling repetitive thoughts helps reduces mental looping.

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose

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Welcome to Inner Strength Meditations. A moment to breathe and be.

What Hashtag Thinking Is

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Hashtag thinking is a mindfulness exercise that will help you develop self-knowledge. You're going to practice noticing and working with your thoughts so you can understand yourself better. This is empowering. When you pay attention to thoughts in this special way, you'll start to identify thoughts that are helpful. And you'll also start to recognize thoughts that are unhelpful. Hashtag thinking is yet another empowering tool in your inner strength toolbox that will help you understand and take care of yourself.

Three-Part Practice Overview

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This will be a three-part exercise. In the first part, you'll begin by noticing and tagging experiences such as thinking or listening. Next, you'll explore thoughts and sounds that are pleasant, unpleasant, or in between. In the third part, you'll zoom in your lens to look at specific thoughts that may keep repeating themselves, and you'll tag these.

Settle Into Posture And Presence

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Let's begin by coming into a comfortable sitting posture with both feet flat on the floor.

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Bring your attention to your spine.

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Invite your spine to rise upward, sitting up tall, yet in a relaxed way. Your hands can rest on your thighs or fold them gently on your lap.

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You can close your eyes if that feels comfortable for you.

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Sitting quietly in a very relaxed way. Just allow yourself to be very natural. Simply aware that you're sitting right here in the present moment.

Tagging Thinking And Listening

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After a few moments, you may notice that your mind is wandered to a thought. It might be a thought about something that happened earlier, or maybe something you have to do. This is natural. Thinking is what minds do. The objective is not to clear your mind of thoughts, but rather to begin to pay attention to the thoughts that you're having. This is different from just thinking. You're noticing your thoughts as they arise and pass away, and this helps you develop self-knowledge as you notice what you're thinking. It also helps you develop calm as you experience that you don't need to respond or react to every thought that crosses your mind.

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When you become aware of a thought, simply notice it and tag it thinking.

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Then you can gently let go and return to sitting in a relaxed and easy way.

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Simply becoming aware when a thought has arisen and tagging it thinking and letting it go.

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Sometimes the mind is drawn to a sound. When this happens, simply notice that you've become aware of a sound and tag it listening, and then gently let it go. Continue sitting quietly, and when you notice the mind is wandered to a thought or a sound, simply and without judgment, tag it thinking or listening, letting that experience go and allowing yourself to just be exactly as you are, sitting quietly in a relaxed way. No need to push any thoughts or sounds away, or to stop thinking from happening. You're just practicing noticing when a thought or sound has arisen and tagging it thinking or listening.

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The practice is always the same.

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Observing your experience, tagging, thinking, or listening, and then letting it go.

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And beginning again. Aware of thinking. Aware of listening.

Pleasant, Unpleasant, In-Between

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Now you're going to move to the second part of the exercise. As you practice tagging thoughts and sounds, you'll notice that some are pleasant, some are unpleasant, and some are in between. Whatever you feel about a particular thought or sound, whether you like it or not, practice tagging it as pleasant, unpleasant, or in between. Once you tag it, you can let it go and return to sitting at ease.

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Noticing how you like some sounds and thoughts and dislike others, and maybe don't feel much at all about other sounds and thoughts.

Tagging Repetitive Specific Thoughts

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Sometimes a particular thought might keep coming back over and over again. When you notice these repetitive thoughts, you can practice getting specific with your hashtag. This is the third and last part of this exploration. Tagging specific thoughts that keep returning. For example, if you keep thinking about a chemistry test that's coming up next week that may be causing you some worry, you can tag it chemistry test thought, and gently let it go as you return to sitting quietly. You're not trying to get rid of the thought, nor are you trying to figure it out or work on changing it. Instead, you're practicing relating to the thought in a fresh way by simply tagging it, softly letting it go, and allowing yourself to be just as you are. So you're sitting in a relaxed way, and when a repetitive thought keeps returning, you can tag it with a specific tag, name it, and then let it go. You may feel a pull to get involved in the story behind the thought. For example, all the details about the chemistry test, what you have to do to prepare for it, whether you like the teacher in the class, maybe some self-judgment about your skill. See if it's possible to resist the temptation to get pulled into the story and instead give it a specific tag, chemistry test thought, and just return to sitting quietly in a relaxed way. Each time the thought returns, tag it and let it go for the moment as you return to sitting quietly.

Staying Out Of The Story

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If it's an important thought, you can always attend to it later after you've finished this practice.

Experiment: What Tagging Changes

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Or it might be a pleasant thought, such as my birthday party thought. Might even be an in-between thought, such as I need to tie my shoes. Whatever the thought is about, it's just fine. You're simply noticing the specific types of thoughts here that are arising for you, tagging them in an easy way and letting them go. Notice what happens to thoughts when you tag them. Do they change in any way? Do they fade away or become stronger? Notice for yourself what happens when you tag your thoughts. Continue for some moments in silence, sitting quietly, noticing when a thought arises, tagging it, letting it go, and just resting with ease.

Closing Bell And Transition

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And when you hear the bell, you can allow the sound of the bell to softly bring you out of the meditation by gently opening your eyes.

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Enjoy this moment and stay well.