Can You Really Watch Your Thoughts Like Clouds?

I remember when I was a kid, my favorite activity was to go to a small hill near our place and lean back to watch the sky. I would go up there with a few friends and we would lean back against the soft grass and just watch the clouds roll by. 

 

What made the whole thing fun was we’d be looking at the exact same thing, but my friends and I would come up with totally different ideas about what we were looking at. I could be looking at a cloud and I would see some sort of tricycle or a bus or even a giraffe, but my buddy would say that it looked like a horse, a dog or plant.  

 

Another friend would chime in and say that the cloud looked like some person or celebrity. We all knew that there was no right or wrong answer. That’s what made it fun. It’s kind of like a collective way of jogging everybody’s imaginations. It was a way of inspiring each other or stirring up jokes. 

 

Did you know that you can do the same with your thoughts? You can develop enough of an emotional distance from your thoughts, that you can just lean back and acknowledge them. There’s no need to freak out. There’s no need to get predictably angry or upset when some sort of mental image comes to mind. You can process your thoughts just like clouds. 

 

When clouds come over, and it doesn’t matter how dark they are or how much rain they contain, sooner or later, they will blow away. Sooner or later, they will pass. It is not surprise that a lot of people who view their thoughts like clouds develop an attitude of “This too will pass.” I want to wrap your mind around that because I know, at this point as you read this article, you may be obsessing about things in the future or in the past. 

 

Maybe something bad happened to you in the past. Maybe you’re embarrassed about something. Maybe you are feeling bad about something that somebody else did to you. By understanding that you can acknowledge these thoughts without being owned by them is the most liberating feeling that you could ever have. 

 

You no longer have to let your emotions get the better of you. You no longer have to worry about your past having such a hold on you, that it prevents you from moving on. This is liberation. What’s so awesome about it is, all that it takes is for you to change your attitude about your thoughts. They’re not present reality, they’re interpretations. 

 

You can choose your interpretations. You can switch your focus to interpretations that make you feel stronger, worthier, more beautiful and happier. That’s how you edit your reality and that’s why you have to learn the mental techniques that will enable you to watch your thoughts like clouds.