I wrote this one for myself, because my mind never stops. It is still the one I use when I need the noise turned down.

About 13 minutes with Steven Webb's calm voice.

You sit on a riverbank and every thought is a leaf going past. Some drift straight through. Some spin about in a little whirlpool a while before they go. You are the bank, not the leaves. One line runs all the way through it. I have thoughts, but I am not those thoughts.

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Steven

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Hello and welcome to The Observer at the River's Edge. Inner Peace for Busy Minds. This is a little

meditation that helps you to understand and detach from your thoughts. It's one of the things that really helped me

to have more inner peace and more calmness,

even though I found meditation really difficult because my mind just never seems to stop. So

I wrote this meditation and hopefully I'll give you the experience and I use this meditation myself very often

just to quieten down the thoughts, just to give myself a little time out. First thing we'll do is just

become comfortable and

we'll just go on this meditative journey together. So

find a comfortable position. You can be sitting or lying down

And whatever feels more comfortable for you in this moment.

And when you're ready, if you gently close your eyes. Or just soften your gaze a few feet in front

of you.

And we'll start by taking a deep breath in. And

just hold it for a moment. And then slowly release this deep breath.

And then just bring your awareness to your breath.

I'm breathing in. I'm breathing out.

And if you just imagine breathing in calm, breathing out relax

Remember you don't need to do anything with your breath. You

don't need to do anything with your breathing at all. And you don't even need to do anything with your

body to relax. Just allow your body to relax. It knows how to do it.

Breathing in calm. Breathing out relax

And if at any point you find your mind wandering, thinking about something else other than this meditation,

that's fine. Just acknowledge the thought and smile and come back to the next instruction or just come back

to the breath and wait.

That's what the mind does.

So imagine sitting on the edge of a beautiful river

And you can hear the sounds of nature all around you.

And you're just sat quiet and still, really comfortable.

And you feel the soft breeze on your skin. You maybe feel the warmth of the sun on your face.

And the river is going to represent the flow of our thoughts. Each

thought is like a floating leaf down the river.

Each thought appears. And then passes by, you simply observe it.

You don't need to react to it. You don't need to interact with it. You don't need to judge it.

Just observe it and allow it to go.

And as you sit there, a thought emerges in your mind visualize the thought as a leaf appearing in the

river. Just slightly upstream.

The thought could be about something you did earlier or something you're planning to do. Or just some random thought.

And it may be a bit difficult because you may fluctuate between what the thought is and the leaf. That's

okay. That's perfectly normal.

Just when you realise it's the thought, just observe it as the leaf as it floats by and then floats

away.

You are not this leaf. You are not this thought. You have thoughts, but you are not those thoughts.

And if you repeat silently just for a few seconds, I have thoughts. I am not those thoughts

I Have Thoughts. I am not those thoughts.

As more thoughts seemingly appear out of nowhere, imagine each one of them as a leaf in the river floating

away.

Some leaves might stay a little longer. They

swirl around in a little small whirlpool before moving on. But eventually all the thought, all the leaves

will drift away.

Even when the thought generates an emotional response,

recognise it just as another leaf.

It too will eventually float away if you let it be.

You are sitting on the edge of the bank, grounded, unaffected by the movement of the leaves in the river.

You are not the thoughts. You are just pure awareness,

The witness to these thoughts.

And you could repeat in your head, I

am the observer, separate from my thoughts.

I am the observer, separate from my thoughts.

And as you take a moment to truly feel this stillness, this peace that comes with being just the observer,

experience the separation between you, the observer and your thoughts, the observed.

You're here, yet you can be aware of your thoughts.

And one of the greatest powers you have over your thoughts is the fact that you don't have to do

anything with them.

Thoughts can just come and go,

Just like feelings can come and go

when we truly understand the nature of our thoughts that they just appear and

then they disappear.

And if you take a moment to truly feel this stillness, the

peace that comes in this moment,

in a moment we're going to shake out our arms and open our eyes and come back to the room.

But just before we do that, really appreciate your mind and your heart and your body for this little moment

of time out.

And you can place your hand on your heart and just thank you.

Now bring your awareness back to your breath.

And as I come back from five, just bring your awareness back to this moment. Five. Four.

Just gently shake out your arms. Three. Gently open your eyes. Two. Look around the room.

One. And just take a deep breath and just appreciate this calmness in this moment.

Just by imagining ourselves sitting next to the river bank and just watching our thoughts come and go. It's like

having a superpower that we don't actually have to get on every thought. We don't have to

be part of every thought and be part of every moment. We can just sit and observe. And when we

realise we are not those thoughts, we then have ultimate control over them. More freedom. More love. More joy in

our lives.

Thank you.

I'm Steven Webb, and this if this meditation helped you in any way, it would be absolutely incredible if you

could leave a review on this podcast. That's what would really help me today more than anything else. Leaving a

review, following the podcast, that would just be absolutely incredible. It not only tells me what I'm doing wrong, if

you didn't enjoy it quite so much, but it also tells... Apple. And it tells all the other podcast

suppliers that people are listening and they do like it and what they really think of it. And it helps

me to reach new people.

And if you want to listen to my other podcast, Stillness in the Storms, where we dive a little deeper

into looking at life differently, if you head over to thankyousteven.com, you can see the links know there

You're awesome. Take care. And I hope you have a wonderful, peaceful day. Thank you.