3. The thoughts
If we don’t run thought-cycles of sadness, then we don’t feel the negative emotions that are the consequences of these thoughts.
If we succeed in questioning our thoughts, we can rewrite our habits and our usual thought patterns. We can literally change the imprinted pathways in our brains.
But if our brains are on autopilot, instead of letting the show play itself in our heads, we need to become aware of it and observe from outside or above. Instead of letting our minds decide what to project onto the vast canvas of our imaginations and manipulate our feelings, let’s take back our power and consciously and intentionally decide what we want to think.
How do we know when we should question or change our thoughts?
– If we don’t like the feelings they give us.
You can try to ask whether those thoughts and feelings are yours or have you just picked them up from someone. In fact, 99.99 % of our thoughts and feelings are not ours. We are so sensitive to our surroundings. To our generation patterns, and to whoever we meet.
Have you ever had the experience that you suddenly became sad, irritated, or angry – so your mood changed very rapidly, without any reason.
This can happen when we go into a room where there had been a quarrel. We pick up the threads of that quarrel.
Or someone you passed in the street had a headache, and your head suddenly starts aching.
Autistic people are especially sensitive to their surroundings and become overwhelmed very quickly.
What to do?
Ask: Does that … belong to me? What percentage of it is mine? If it isn’t mine, who does it belong to?
And (you don’t even have to know to whom it belongs to) give it back with consciousness.
If you give back with consciousness – it doesn’t mean the other will be sick. It can help you and the other as well, to get rid of the bad feelings and thoughts.
In Access Consciousness, Gary Douglas says that if you feel a heavy feeling when you think about something, then you are dealing with something suspicious, with a lie, with something that is not true.
The truth is always easy and joyful. There is no need to question thoughts that make you feel good. Good feelings lead to good actions and good results.
Question any thoughts that don’t give you the feeling you want. Those thoughts that feel heavy.
Remember that the thoughts that cause pain and heaviness are not true.
Also note that you should not confuse circumstances with thoughts. You have no power over circumstances, but you can be the complete master of your thoughts.
There are many ways to change a thought. I’m going to show you a very simple way.
Byron Katie’s four sentences, “Turn it around!” An example:
- My husband doesn’t care about me; he doesn’t love me anymore.
- I don’t care about my husband; I certainly don’t love him anymore. How does this sentence make you feel? True? Is there any truth in it?
- My husband doesn’t take care of himself, he certainly doesn’t love himself.
- I don’t take care of myself because I don’t love myself.
I have influence over the sentences beginning with I, because I can decide what I want to think and feel.
I have no influence on my husband’s thoughts, I cannot change them, I cannot know whether they are true or not. I can only work on myself. And if I work on myself, my environment will soon change as well. If I take care of myself and love myself, I will radiate that from myself, and therefore I will see this in others.
There is another version of these four sentences:
- Write down the painful thought.
- Describe how this thought makes you feel.
- Write down a slightly better thought that you can still imagine in this situation.
- Describe the feeling that this new thought gives you (and repeat as often as necessary).
For example:
- Original thought: I am ugly and fat. (I’m ashamed.)
- Substituted thought: My lips are beautiful (happiness). My hair looks good (pride). I am nice (satisfaction). I’m not as fat as I was (joy).
- When you find a new thought, make sure you can actually believe in it and that it really makes you feel good.
You can ask yourself how you could feel even more wonderful than this, and what thought would be needed to feel this even more wonderful feeling?
“How can I feel even better than this?”
“What can I perceive, know, be and receive to feel even better than this?”
“What’s right about me that I am not getting?”
You can also ask, “If I wasn’t wrong, if I wasn’t bad and ugly what would I be?”
And the answers will come; we don’t even have to lift a finger. Your brain starts to work, or the universe does its job and does everything to find the answer to this question.
(You mustn’t look for answers. Looking for answers closes down and fixes the reality. Questions open things up!)
How do we know the answer? Usually the answer comes like a whisper, or a new thought that doesn’t follow your usual thought patterns. Something unusual, something new. Or you meet someone who said a word. Or you read something somewhere. Anything is possible.
Are we aware of our thoughts? Or just ‘blah, blah, blah’, we play with them without any particular awareness?
Or do we just continue our usual thought patterns and believe the lies? Do we let the ‘Mind Pixie’ in our head pull us on the leash of suffering, believing that we have no other choice?
Do you want to know what the circuits in your mind look like?
What do they want to achieve and what do they keep telling you?
Just have a look at your life.
You are the source of the creation of your life. You have created everything. Are you satisfied with your creation?
Do you have no money? You don’t have a material-money-abundance consciousness thought circuit.
Are you overweight? An overweight program is running in your head.
Are you bored? Boring thoughts.
Some people look at their lives with even more despair, saying, “I’m not good enough. I’m good for nothing.”
The good news is that if you notice these thoughts, just by noticing them, you will be transferred to the position of the observer, from where you can change the pattern.
You cannot be the thought and the observer of your thought at the same time!
Just by becoming aware of your thoughts, you have taken the first step, which is already half the job done. Take full responsibility for your thoughts. Remember: a belief, a habit, is just a thought that you have repeated many times and charged with a huge amount of emotion.
Remember that your entire personality, the way you see yourself, all originates from the ‘thoughts of your mind’. Instead of living in your mind, look at your mind – that’s the key to everything.
You can try it now. Take a moment and put yourself in the role of the Observer: observe and write down the first ten thoughts that come to mind…