The mind's urge to keep repeating negative thoughts is especially apparent on days like today when the weather inside my head is as gloomy and potentially stormy as that outside my window. Using a mindful approach to watch this repetition, a thought "struck" me: my negativity has nothing useful to say to me today. So that's what I've been saying to myself whenever I spot another gloomy/irritable thought starting to repeat itself for the umpteenth time. It doesn't change facts of course: traffic is still heavy, financial commitments still loom large (as with so many other people in Ireland, not to mention Greece, Spain, Portugal, USA etc etc) and there's still more to do today than I can possibly get around to doing.
But all my negative thoughts can do is add to the burden. They had nothing to contribute to the drive to the school (oddly enough we got there early despite the heavy traffic) or to the shopping in the supermarket. So that's what I'm practising with today and for that to work I need to stay mindful of what's going through my head and to remember that, no matter how unpleasant the objective facts may be, my negativity has nothing useful to say to me right now.
