Looking for a New Year’s resolution for 2026?

Here’s a short and simple one: ‘Disidentify with the mind’*

a frosty field with pale sun on the horizon and a bare branches

I had a try at this while on silent Retreat over New Year, following the method of watching thoughts and labelling them. This was while we did long silent walks over the South Downs in single file, as well as yoga and meditation. The example I give below is watching thoughts while walking though a field of cows.

‘Fear, fear, fear, [while passing cows], planning, planning, planning, ruminating, worrying, memories, planning [a conversation], fear [frost on chalk path], planning, etc.’

The idea of watching thoughts is to realise there is a separate part of ourselves: a silent attender who is not part of those thoughts, and can offer a different perspective on them.

After all, the mind, as Joseph Goldstein says, ‘has no pride’. Mine often sent me back for seconds of cake (it was a well-fed silent retreat) only to shame me after I’d eaten it.

Disidentifying from the mind is not the same as dissociation. Dissociation is linked to the freeze response of trauma.** This behaviour might be more often achieved by numbing out with TV, shopping, alcohol, drugs or food.

A couple of days into this Retreat of silence, yoga, walking, meditation and watching thoughts, there was the reward of the odd golden moment of ‘nothingness’. Just the look of the frozen grass going strangely monochrome in the shade, or the sun-tipped clouds, with no additional chatter.

This for Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, is what we need more of. Certainly, no thoughts – if only just for a few seconds – felt like a pleasing rest from ‘Radio Non-Stop Thinking’***.

A silent retreat is surprisingly noisy with thoughts. These thoughts consume a lot of our energy: they can create anxiety, tell us we need to over eat or over drink, guilt us, worry us, berate us, shame us, repeat parental reprimands, as well as provide laughter or interest. This separation from identifying with thoughts entirely proved rejuvenating, if difficult to maintain back in the real world.

However, there are mini-breaks of the mind which my clients often utilise. A coffee alone after therapy to just process, a walk by the sea or in nature, cuddling up in a blanket.

So if you are looking for a New Year’s resolution, this is one you could try.

Suggested Reading:

*The Power of Now, Eckhart Toll (In this book he presents the concept of disidentifying with the mind.)

**Waking Tiger: Healing Trauma , Peter Levine

***Silence, Thich Nhat Hahn

Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening Joseph Goldstein