5 Mindfulness Practices To Befriend Your Mind

Although you can’t stop your mind from its natural fluctuation, you can use simple mindfulness practices to become more aware of your thoughts and accepting of your mind and yourself.

Mind is a powerful and complex mechanism that, if handled well, allows you to create the life you want. Although you have little to no control over what happens outside of you, you can choose how you want to perceive it, respond to it, and experience it. 

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the ability to direct your awareness toward the present moment while calmly observing your thoughts and emotions without judgment. 

There are two main reasons you are stressed, anxious, and overwhelmed. You are either worrying about the future that didn’t happen or ruminating on the past that’s over. None of these two are here and now, and they don’t exist. 

Through mindfulness practices, you train your mind and thoughts for the present. This allows you to gain more control of what you think and befriend your thoughts instead of rejecting them. 

5 mindfulness practices to befriend your mind

1. Practice conscious awareness 

To become more present, you must willingly and intentionally keep yourself in the present moment. You can do it by being consciously aware of things happening around and within you.

Conscious awareness helps you to stay in the now, learn more about your thoughts and emotions, and train you to become more responsive instead of reactive. 

Understandably, your mind will naturally wander, and you go unconscious throughout the day numerous times. Therefore, I suggest setting up an alarm on your phone every few hours or as your schedule permits. 

Once the alarm goes off, check in with yourself and recognize your present state of thoughts and emotions. 

If your thoughts aren’t aligned with what you want to think, reframe from judgment and let them pass by. 

2. Disengage from negative thoughts 

By being aware of your negative thoughts, you can choose how to respond to them. We often think that it is the thought itself which is a problem. However, thought alone has no meaning unless we give it one. 

We become captured by the thought because we identify with it and believe it is true – we give it meaning and make it real. 

Instead of believing everything you think, you can challenge your point of view and break thinking patterns that don’t serve you. Even better, you can learn to suppress fearful thoughts without giving them space to express. 

Based on the study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, 120 people underwent online training to suppress fearful or neutral thoughts. After training, participants reported less anxiety and depression with benefits persisting for up to 3 months. 

These results challenge the conventional approach to mental health that suggests that suppressing negative and intrusive thoughts leads to worsening symptoms. 

3. Affirm and visualize  

One of the easiest and most accessible mindfulness practices is affirmations. Think of them as thoughts you consciously and deliberately choose to think. 

Most of your thoughts are repetitive, especially if you aren’t aware of them. Instead of letting your mind unconsciously think repetitive thoughts from the past, manage it by writing down statements and beliefs you want to bring to life. 

When it comes to practicing affirmations, there are a few things to follow to get the most out of this practice: 

• Practice affirmations that are true to you. Instead of saying ‘I don’t procrastinate’, you can say ‘I am learning not to delay things I need to take care of.”
• Connect with your affirmations on an emotional level through visualization: Every time you read your affirmations out loud, become mindful of every word you say. Don’t make it a chore. Instead, close your eyes and visualize the person you are becoming. How is this person feeling, thinking, and acting? Make this image as vivid as possible and immerse yourself in it. 

4. Allow yourself to wander 

In today’s era of constant distractions or goal-oriented society, simply sitting and thinking may be considered boring or, in some cases, unproductive. 

Letting your mind wander is an opportunity for reflection and imagination. I also help you find solutions for problems in life, and tune into your creative side. 

In my work with women who seek to understand their minds and how to manage them, I often recommend sitting in silence for at least 10 minutes. This simple solitude exercise allows them to be with their thoughts and notice subtler negative thoughts that may unconsciously run in the background.  

They come back in awe and surprise since they aren’t familiar with some of their thoughts. This often leads to big epiphanies and realizations. 

Based on this study, participants were asked to simply sit and think in a waiting room. Before the experiment, their predictability of enjoying their thoughts was much lower than afterward. They reported higher enjoyment of their thoughts than previously anticipated. 

5. Try mindfulness meditation 

A common misconception about meditation is that we must stop the fluctuation of the mind to do it “right”. But meditation isn’t about stopping the mind, but rather, observing the thoughts that come up. 

One of the most empowering mindfulness practices is mindfulness meditation. It has two main parts: attention and acceptance. 

Through attention, you observe the thoughts that come up without analyzing them. By accepting them, you see them as they are and reframe from judgment. You take the duality of good or bad out of the picture. 

Mindfulness meditation has been proven to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression and even help people stop smoking and overcome addictions. 

If you are new to meditation, start with 5 to 10 minutes a day. See it for a trial period. Over time, as you notice the benefits and become comfortable with the practice, increase the time for meditation. 

I want to encourage you to set the time for your mindfulness practices while exercising conscious awareness throughout the day. Set an alarm on your phone as a reminder and check in with yourself. 

Break the belief that you can’t manage your internal system and become in charge of how you think and feel.