Jake Burhans teaches a three-step mindfulness practice to reduce stress. Notice a thought or feeling as something separate from you, like a sweatshirt you're observing. Then name it: stress, worry, anxiety. This distance weakens its grip.
How to practice the skill of awareness in 3 easy steps. 1: Notice the thought or the emotion. Understand that you are not your thoughts or your emotions. These are objects to your consciousness, just like a sweatshirt is, just like books are, just like a pillow is. When you begin to create that separation, you open up space and you reduce the charge of that thing. As long as you're identified with the thought or the emotion, you're in the middle of the storm. I am anxiety. I am stress. I am nervousness. I am doubt. There's no way for you to get out of it. Next, you name it. Oh yeah, there's that feeling of stress, there's that thought of worry, there's that thought of anxiety. Again, you're objectifying it. It's just a thing to your consciousness, which creates space and reduces the charge of the thing. By doing those two things, you then neutralize the power of that thought or of that emotion. So notice the thought, name it, and you will neutralize it.
