Obsession

We can be obsessed about all kinds of things in life. Doesn't matter whether it's a person, a food, some music, anything at all. The tricky thing is when that starts to interfere with our mind, the way we feel, and our relationships. And of course, when we experience it within the context, within the framework of a Headspace session, not only do we see it more clearly, but it starts to become the dominant feature. It's really hard to gently place our attention on an object of focus when in the back of the mind is kind of screaming, "No, no, no. Look at this, look at this" and asking for our attention. So as much as possible, we need to see that obsession is just a sort of an extreme form of attachment, where we have at some stage, it was nothing more than a thought but that thought developed into a story. The story became very compelling. So we bought into that story. We played it over in our mind. We developed it, we cultivated. It became something bigger. We might not have done it intentionally. It just kind of happened somehow probably because we weren't that conscious in a way at the time. It then developed further. It became this thing that it's almost as though it occupies our entire mind, all of our energy, all of our attention so much so that it becomes this obsession and we can't imagine being free of it. Now, just to be clear, this isn't the... If this is something you experienced, not that you've done anything kind of wrong and is nothing that can't be unwound, but it's good to recognize kind of at what stage that story has become so strong, but maybe it doesn't even really reflect how you honestly feel or what's happening in the world around you. And that's often the case that the storyliner in our mind is very different from the reality we're experiencing. So, before you even sit to get your Headspace, make sure that you are conscious and aware of how strongly that storyline is playing that day. Know that thoughts of that are probably gonna arise during the session. You're not gonna judge it. You're not gonna criticize it. You're not gonna give yourself a hard time. Instead, you can approach your mind in a really kind and gentle way, knowing that it's developed this habit, but knowing like all habits, we can unwind them, we can allow them to sort of move on if you like. And by sitting regularly, by seeing that sort of a mind that wants to chase after the thought the whole time, over time we get to put that down, we get to leave it alone and we get to let it go, and instead to be present with whatever we're focusing on at the time. The object to the obsession in the context of Headspace doesn't really matter. We might feel kind...