Hello, it's Sam here.

Welcome to Radio Headspace and to Wednesday morning.

I recently received a listener question that brought up something that many of us deal

with, judging our thoughts.

There are many flavors of difficult thoughts, and they get louder and more frequent when

we're stressed or anxious, tired, or overwhelmed.

This listener shared that she attended a religious school growing up, where she was told that

God was listening to her thoughts and judging her for them.

And this messaging still informs her relationship to her thoughts today.

So she was wondering how to be less judgmental with herself.

Now, this isn't to say that all religious influences are problematic, but in our youth

we're forming our identities, and these messages we receive from authority figures can strongly

affect us throughout our lives.

Working with our thoughts can be tricky, as we try to parse through messages from our

past and reason with ourselves in the present.

One of the most helpful ways of managing our emotions is to name them.

You can remember this rhyme.

Name it to tame it.

To remind yourself to pause and identify emotions as they arise.

But it's easier said than done.

It can be difficult to pinpoint which emotions were feeling because they may be so nuanced

and even contradictory.

...