A situation crops up – imagine this like a movie playing on the big screen.

We can get quite caught up in this movie, engrossed by the twists and turns, real or imagined. We layer on the planning or the worrying or the fantasy. We plan out best and worst case scenarios to no end.

Now with some self-awareness, we might pause and go – Hang on, what’s going on here?

Are we lost in this movie of our making? Or do we remember that we are a movie-goer in the cinema seat?

With mindfulness, you can learn to zoom out and observe this whole scene, both the movie and what’s happening for you in the cinema seat. You can see how the movies keep rolling, one onto the next… sometimes they are serious documentaries, sometimes sci-fi flicks, sometimes rom-coms, occasionally a news flash, or sometimes just advertisements for the latest gadget or holiday destination.

We also have our favourite re-runs, those familiar, repetitive storylines that we’ve watched over and over again!

We may never be rid of our ‘movies’ but we can gain some perspective. Even more importantly, it might be possible to – hey, where am I? Why am I in this cinema? Oh, this re-run again? Are others watching the same movie as me?