Are our thoughts helpful or not?
Thoughts are a funny thing (if you think about it!) – sometimes we want them, sometimes they help us, sometimes we can’t stop them, sometimes they are happy and sometimes they are sad. Often they just bubble up out of nowhere and other times our thoughts are about other people, events, memories or perhaps future events that haven’t even happened yet.
So many thoughts, and often we don’t want them, alternatively, we might like to rerun good memories as it feels nice, or rerun bad memories to wonder what we could have done differently or to be angry at another person etc.
However, what if we ask the question “Do we even need thoughts?” or “What do thoughts do for us?” Because plants and animals don’t seem to consciously think too deeply and they seem to do OK, they seem quite happy, monks who sit in caves and meditate for years seem quite happy in their silent little worlds, their bodies still function without them thinking, animals make decisions without thinking.
Perhaps we need to look at thoughts from a different perspective – “Do we need to think using words?”
I guess that if we make a quick decision we might say it was ‘intuition’ or a ‘gut feeling’ that made that decision or common sense, perhaps it was just ‘the right thing to do’ – all of these common reactions didn’t involve thinking (or at least thinking in words) because it just felt right or it was just what we believed was the right thing to do.
So it is very possible that we can make very sound decisions with very little thinking or minimal use of logic.
Is how we feel, really the truth about how we feel?
I think for most people their feelings (or how they feel) in any moment is used as a barometer of their happiness. In addition, how they feel seems to influence the thoughts they unconsciously experience and consciously generate, for example; if a person was wronged in some way they may feel bad and spend a lot of time thinking about what had happened and how it was unfair, or how they should have behaved differently or what the consequences may be on their future etc. etc. Sadly this type of thinking normally increases the bad feelings they experience too.
Seems to me that there is a process here;
- Thinking seems to generate emotions and feelings
- The emotions and feelings – define how you feel
- How you feel defines how you behave
- How you behave determines your outcomes
- Your outcomes determine what you think about
- Repeat infinitum…..
Is there a better way?
What if it is actually the other way around?
What if our feelings are the barometer of our (negative) thinking and to feel better we need to clean up (or silence) much of our retrospective, analytical, fearful, worrying, controlling and stressful thinking patterns?
______________
Or to put it another way our body responds to what we hold in mind – therefore even if we can (with words and logic) justify our negative thoughts, we are still generating bad feelings and bodily stresses that we may not want.
So, if the goal is to feel OK or to feel calm and neutral (unstressed) it would make sense that the mind would need to be quiet, and for the mind to begin to silence we would need to let go of looking at life in terms of dualities, such as, right and wrong, good and bad, should have shouldn’t have etc.
Because at a certain level these dualities don’t actually exist anyway – good and bad are points of view and can’t be argued without a full definition of the context of the situation, anyone with a modicum of intelligence can see that. Light is not the opposite of dark, there is either lots of light or not much light. Hate is not the opposite of love, there is either lots of love or not much love.
Our beliefs also seem to get in the way, for example; a person might say that fairness is really important to them and may get agitated if something is not fair, however, what is their absolute definition of fairness? In my experience those who want things to be fair usually put other peoples needs before their own – and from a certain perspective that is not fair!
So, if we can let go of our addictions to thinking and to logic & reason, right & wrong, then we might just have a chance to find some calmness, stillness and the more neutral emotions that I think our bodies secretly crave cialis 10mg generique.
Do you want to look at life differently?
If you can connect (at any level) with any of these concepts and you would like to take more control over how you think and how you feel, I can teach you new ways to look at life and your interaction with it that will lessen how you need to control it, fear it or escape it.
Give me a call 01280 823059