Bare attention, without getting caught up in analyzing thoughts and images seems helpful. I think of it as if I were an auditor for a museum. I've been hired to simply audit the paintings there. I walk through the museum simply counting the paintings. I don't care if they are Rembrandts, Miros, Picassos or Aunt Sally down the street. All I'm interested in is "the painting", not what it is OF.
The content doesn't interest me at all. Just the painting. Just the thought or image that arises. It could be a painting/image/thought of any thing at all. There is no good/bad in any painting/image/thought. I just move from one to another. Or, I could say, they just move in the mind as clouds move through the sky. I don't try to control them, comment on them, judge them.
Ah, then comes a thought/image that I react to. I hop on the train, get involved in the thought/image, engage it, ride on the thought train for awhile and then hop off! This almost always happens! When I've jumped off the thought train and am again simply doing bare attention, any judgment I have re "I lost it, I shouldn't have jumped on the train"...that then becomes the focus of awareness. I try to "bare attention" that judgement and....so on!
I hope this is appropriate. If not, let me know. Thanks, Steve.