Warning: Don’t take your thoughts too seriously

It’s a shame we don’t learn this in school: Don’t take your thoughts too seriously.

When present and focused, our thinking minds can do and create incredible things. Affirm that with one quick glance around you.

But we have to be careful.

Our thoughts also have the ability to lead us into fear, pain, regret, self-doubt — broadly, the pits — on a whim.

Everything around us can be perfectly OK. We can be resting under a comfy blanket on a cozy couch. No mortal danger, no acute heartache, no pressing deadline, no reason to be on edge. And yet, inner turmoil abides.

I’m not going to suggest there’s only one neat and simple explanation for this. I understand we’re all different and there can be numerous causes, warranting various forms of attention and treatment. But a real issue is that we listen to our own thoughts more than is useful.

As I said, thinking is a wonderful, necessary skill. But our neurotic ruminations aren’t so great.

It’s like how in the middle of a beautiful and quiet New Year’s Eve dinner, while sitting with the person I love, eating delicious food in our romantically lit kitchen,

I start recalling past Dec. 31 celebrations and think myself into a pointless vibe that I can best describe as nostalgic melancholy. Fortunately, I caught this silliness quickly, cut it out and carried on.

But this kind of thing comes up in ways big and small all the

time. We ride the wild train of our thoughts with no awareness of what we’re doing, or that there’s even a choice.

The problem isn’t with thinking itself. Our minds are supposed to think. That’s fine.

The issue is that we’re inclined to listen to our thoughts too closely, and we either don’t know or don’t remember that we can catch the destructive ones and cast them aside.

To be clear, that doesn’t mean we should sweep legitimate problems under the rug or distrust ourselves. Not at all. But we are not our thoughts. And there’s a big difference between useful pondering and compulsive, unhelpful, incessant inner chatter.

Keep this in mind: When you start feeling icky, is there something going on upstairs that, when you take a step back, is actually useless self-sabotage that you could brush off instead?

We all have plenty of important things on our minds. Discarding these thoughts can be one way to lighten the load — and maybe even pick up some joy in the process.

Marci Izard Sharif is an author, yoga teacher, meditation facilitator and mother. In Feeling Matters, she writes about self-love, sharing self-care tools, stories and resources that center around knowing and being kind to yourself. For her classes and more, go to marcisharif.com.

Getty Images Thoughts can lead us into fear, pain, regret, self-doubt — broadly, the pits — on a whim.

MARCI SHARIF Feeling Matters