Think of your thoughts like a river flowing.

Sometimes your thoughts are pleasant.  Sometimes your thoughts are an ugly rush of self-criticism.

It’s tempting to dive into the critical whirlpool and struggle upstream to escape negativity.

Or we can erect a self-improvement dam to push against the flow.

If we’re really determined, we can drown ourselves in the process.

But every time we fight against self-criticism or any thought we actually affirm it.  We make it firm.  We give it power.  We make the unreal seem real.

We make up a story about reality, or who we are, and then punish ourselves with it.

Our thoughts are not real, they are only compelling.

The river of thoughts is impermanent, and that which is impermanent is not real. 

It’s exhausting and pointless to fight the river of impermanence.  So instead, bless and let go.

Notice your thoughts.

Know them as passing comments.

Know they are fiction.

And let them flow.

This connects you with the permanence beyond impermanence– the source of all.

When you rest as that source, you abide in that which is real.

Can you relax and allow the river of thoughts to flow through you, knowing that as you do, you move from the “unreal to the real”?