Don’t trust your thoughts (especially the shoulds). Thoughts are just mental words and images that come and go and should be viewed with a healthy skepticism. This doesn’t mean that thinking is bad. Remember, planning, problem-solving, and being creative are part of what makes us uniquely human and helps us in life. Thinking trips us up when we get caught up in worry or self-judgmental habit loops (that is to say, shoulding—I should do this, I shouldn’t do that). Those types of thoughts, especially the ones that have strong opinions, are the ones to be on the lookout for, as they just make us
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