Think About Your Thoughts
For a long time, our thoughts shape the basis of our reality. The link between thoughts, feelings and behavior oftentimes leads to the unique problems we face in life. The thinking mind is very agile, constantly jumping from one topic to another. It is also extremely tenacious, clinging to a thought loop as if it were the most important thing in the world. All this happens on auto-pilot mode with the least effort from your side. Most people have the mistaken idea that the reason they feel or think a certain way is the result of their circumstances, not understanding that it is their thought power that is creating those very conditions, whether wanted or unwanted.
By changing thought patterns, feelings and behavior change leading to a transformed life. Yet the effects of negative thoughts have caused so many people to suffer in silence. You may have heard the saying: The gun may present the opportunity but the thought pulls the trigger. To be fair, we gave way too much credit to the thoughts in our head. When you learn to be aware of your thoughts, you grant yourself the power to be master over your destiny.
On average, the human mind thinks over 60,000 thoughts a day. Out of those, 80% are negative thoughts. We are awash with negative thoughts. It is a normal part of human functioning. Most of your thoughts are really just reflections of the emotions that you didn’t choose. We are all predisposed to think negatively. We are also more inclined to engage deeply with these emotions. As a result, we spend more of our time dwelling on negative thoughts.
To be fair, happiness doesn’t depend on a few negative thoughts you have, but on what you do with the ones you have. Understand that a thought is just a thought. You do not have to worry about getting them. In fact, you don’t even have to believe them. Yes, you can read that again. Your mind would have you believe that they are real but the truth is, your mind is not you. You are made up of many parts of which the mind is only one part of you. Another way of putting it is that your mind is a tool that you use to function. You do not need to identify with it and certainly do not allow it overtake you.
Your mind adds its own narrative to the thoughts that you encounter every day through a set of filters that were formed in your subconscious before it is presented to you either positively or negatively. Just because you think of something doesn’t mean it’s true. The negativity is in the filter. Those thoughts portray itself as suggestions onto your consciousness. The dictionary describes suggestion as the act or instance of putting something into one’s mind, the mental process by which the thought or idea suggested is entertained, accepted, or put into effect. It appears on a giant projector screen to which you are the audience. These flashes emerge from within your subconsciousness and it slips away as easily as they appear.
Every thought, feeling and sensation that you are aware of is in fact happening only in your private internal world. They are not being heard or experienced by anyone else. Your thoughts appear only to you. They do not exist except outside of your awareness. What matters is what you do with it when they arise.
Studies have shown that up to 95% of the thoughts we think are repetitive. If we repeat negative thoughts, it means that we are thinking negative way more than we realize. All negative thoughts are not bad but most are useless. They create imaginary drama in your mind.
The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life.
– Eckhart Tolle
What makes a thought real is the attention you bring to it. By focusing on it and relating to it as if it is an event happening somewhere, you can often end up reinforcing them and giving them more solidity than they actually have. This is especially a problem for people who become obsessive with their thoughts because it can become another compulsion pulling them forward. What you think directly influences how you feel and how you behave. So if you think you’re a failure, you’ll feel like a failure. Then, you’ll act like a failure, which reinforces your belief that you must be a failure.
Understand that you do not have to attend to a thought, answer it, change it or identify with it. Coming to terms with the fact that you are not your thoughts will enable you to separate it from your sense of self. You are the thinker and the observer of your thoughts. Your ability
to recognize yourself observing the thoughts is the first step towards freedom and a clear mind. Be conscious of what you are actively thinking so that you can become the master of your mind.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
– Viktor Frankly
Even though the thoughts that pass through your consciousness may not be true, the feelings that result from identifying with them can be acutely painful. When you direct your attention towards your thoughts and begin to respond to it, it now has the power to destroy confidence or build it strong, eliminate or establish self-esteem, create self-love or self-hate. Every thought has an attached feeling and emotion. They may be a part of who you are at this moment and they may or may not exist in the next. By accepting the attached fleeting emotion you have concluded the outcome of that thought as if it has already happened but in reality, it has not except only within you.
Many people needlessly suffer when they choose to get entangled with their thoughts and the emotion that comes along with it by worrying about them, struggling against them or attempting to reason them away. You may have mistaken these temporal states as being who you are.
Realize that your mind is separate from you. It is inherently designed to think. It collects information based on what you have experienced up until that point, as well as energetic information that your mind may be unable to consciously decipher, and from there it creates thoughts. You may not always be aware of the source of your thoughts. Leave those thoughts alone. Treat them as if they are not even interesting, and they will eventually fade into the background.
If you recognize the thought as just a thought and that it does not exist except only in an instance in your mind and refuse to give your attention it will eventually cease to be.
Almost all of your thoughts are involuntary. You do not have a part in choosing them, therefore, you are not its author. Thoughts do not define or control you. They are like floating clouds that come and dissipate. They arise, you see them as what they are and let them go. Watch your thoughts and behaviors from the place of a friendly observer. Be curious and open-minded about what goes on inside your mind.
Remind yourself there's nothing wrong when you have a negative thought. Instead, it is an opportunity to reflect on whether these thoughts are relevant and helpful. By being mindful or simply put, bringing awareness to the present moment enables you to catch the thought as soon as it arises. You will be able to identify the thoughts and exit the repetitive cycle that plays on an endless loop in the brain.
Choose to be the witness of your thoughts. Remain as the seer.
