Matt Tenney > Quotes

“If we're not comparing the present moment to thoughts of the past or thoughts of the future, the present moment is actually perfect just as it is.”
― Matt Tenney, Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom

“Almost everyone spends almost every moment of life identified with the body, mind, and thoughts, instead of being aware of the body, mind, and thoughts.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“When you spend time with people you love, you’ll actually be there, fully present, instead of being partially or completely caught up in thoughts. As a result, people will feel more loved by you, and your relationships will deepen and become significantly more fulfilling.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“S - Stop interacting with the perceived cause of the emotion C - Control the breathing and name the emotion I - Investigate like you’re a scientist in your own body L - Look for the real cause of the emotion”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“My spiritual life became very energized when I realized that the practice of mindful self-awareness is a systematic way of training to become more Christlike.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Similarly, when you spend all your time talking to yourself, consciously thinking, it’s as though the mind is so cloudy that you can’t make out individual clouds. By learning to clear the mind of conscious thinking, you can start to see individual clouds and identify which ones are most important. By identifying and prioritizing the most important problems and tasks, you can dramatically improve your productivity.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“If you don’t want what’s happening to you in the present moment to happen, you suffer. For instance, here’s a silly but poignant example.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“As a general rule, the only true effort that’s needed is to break the habit of identifying with thinking and become mindfully self-aware. This is how you’ll most quickly be free from overthinking.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Imagine you’re engaged in some activity that you enjoy, like walking in the woods, when the thought of having ice cream arises. Because you really like ice cream, the desire to have it immediately arises, which is natural. However, the moment you identify with the desire to have the ice cream, you will start to suffer.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Ultimately, the practice really comes down to this: remembering to wake up and drop your identification with thinking as often as you can. Then, once you’re mindfully self-aware, to let go of any mental effort and just let things be as they are.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“You’ll realize, just as I did when I was in prison, that if you’re just brushing your teeth, not caught in your thoughts of past or future, joy is possible while brushing your teeth at any time, no matter what is happening in your life outside of that moment. Since roughly 95 percent of your life consists of simple, mundane moments, like brushing your teeth, this means that you can be happy during at least 95 percent of your life!”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“A very skillful means for being curious is to maintain a questioning attitude of What’s happening now? during practice sessions.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“But the moment you identify with the desire to get rid of the itch, you will start to suffer. There will be tension in the mind and body that won’t go away until you get rid of the itch.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“We create problems by talking to ourselves, overthinking, and telling ourselves negative stories about what happens to us.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Third, by practicing mindful self-awareness during the mundane moments of life, you start to discover peace of mind, and even joy, in moments that you used to see as obstacles to what you wanted. This allows you to directly realize that you can be happy regardless of what situation you find yourself in.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“This is why during the sitting still practice it’s so helpful to use the breath as a timer of sorts instead of as an object of attention. By just having a general awareness of what the body is doing, even if it’s just sitting still, expanding and contracting, you strike a wonderful balance that allows you to remain mindfully self-aware without building a new bad habit, like trying to maintain focused attention for long periods of time.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“comparative thinking—comparing the present moment to the past or future—is a significant cause of dissatisfaction.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“I estimate that, for the average person, about 95 percent of life consists of simple mundane moments like brushing your teeth, cleaning, walking from place to place, working, sitting and waiting, or driving a car. So, if you’re not present during these moments, not living them, it means that in your rush to get to the “exciting future,” you’re skipping over about 95 percent of your life!”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“The moment we identify with a thought, we get caught in it, and we start talking to ourselves, generating more thoughts. Identifying with a thought is what triggers overthinking.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Also, because you’ve reinforced the habit of seeking happiness by gratifying your desires, the ice cream will not satisfy you for long. Soon after eating the ice cream, you’ll experience a void that yearns to be filled. This will lead to a desire for something else. If you identify with that desire, you’ll be caught in suffering once again.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“What we initially think of as being the worst thing that ever happened to us may one day be thought of as something that had an overall positive impact on us.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“As you read this, it’s possible that you just remembered a profound truth that you may have forgotten: the problems in our lives don’t result from what happens to us but from what we think about what happens to us.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“To be clear, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have desires. It’s perfectly fine to want things to be a certain way and to have goals. What I am saying is that if you identify with and attach to a desire or a goal in a given moment, you will suffer in that moment.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Ultimately, concentration is not something you “do,” concentration is something that “happens” when you drop the bad habit of identifying with thinking.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“When thoughts arise, just mentally note “Thinking about (insert topic),” allow the thought to be there just as it is, and then note, “Now, just brushing the teeth again.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Spending all of your time talking to yourself, consciously thinking, is a lot like spending all day obsessively checking email and social media. You’re doing a lot of stuff, but it’s not stuff that matters much. When you spend all your time on menial tasks, you don’t have time to step back and see what’s most important.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“Even more importantly, each time the brain has direct experience of being aware without being identified with the ego, it is less likely to be a reflection of the ego, which is never satisfied, inherently selfish, and always slightly afraid of dying. Instead, the brain and the personality it creates become a reflection of your true self.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“any moment that isn’t very painful physically or emotionally, you can be free from thinking on demand, at least for a brief moment or two.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“You, like other babies, experienced this sort of heaven on earth for many months before your mind started developing the habit of identifying with comparative thoughts, which led you to being increasingly less satisfied with “ordinary” moments.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time

“No great idea or scientific breakthrough I’ve ever heard of happened while a person was actively thinking about a problem. They all happened when the person was doing something else and was not actively thinking about the problem.”
― Matt Tenney, The Magic of Mindful Self-Awareness: How To Stop Overthinking, Clear Your Mind, and Be Happy (Almost) All the Time