Thoughts
The Grasshopper posed an interesting question: “Do you use thoughts or do they use you?”
There’s a simple test. Answer this question and you will get your test score: “Do my thoughts move me in a direction or do they keep me stuck where I am?”
If you are going around in circles, inside of your head, you are caught in a loop of thoughts with no exit ramp. This is a telltale sign that your thoughts are using you, and using up your energy.
Your escape route from being used may be to use something to deaden your thoughts – medicine, illicit drugs, sleep, abundant activity, alcohol, etc. These approaches all have side effects.
In order to use your thoughts, you have to dislodge the ones that are stuck. They are like a tractor trailer strewn sideways across the highway. Nothing moves until we create a space to move around it.
Thinking is like mentally eating glue. It’s guaranteed to keep your thoughts stuck. When you consciously decide to think, you decide to go over the same material over and over again. Nothing moves. Thinking gets in the way of new thoughts forming because thinking jams your mind.
Observation of your thinking is the tool that creates space and fosters flow.
When you catch yourself thinking the same thoughts, that’s your window of opportunity to stop being used by your thoughts. This outside observation of the thought process creates space for fresh, new thoughts to enter. Observation is the tool that unclogs the pipeline and allows your mind the freedom to create new thoughts.
We usually get a new thought when we are engaged in something besides thinking – for some it happens taking a shower, resting in an easy chair, or doing something that takes most of their conscious attention. We recognize that it’s a new thought when our mind instantly compares it to all the other thoughts that keep hanging around and senses it as different.
You can create this new thought environment by using your power of observation. Observe your mind at work like an uninvolved bystander. Be like a reporter at the scene of an accident and just notice what is happening rather than becoming involved in it.
Observation is the liberator. True freedom is the result. When you are free from your repetitive thoughts, you truly have an open mind – one that allows thoughts to flow in and out. You are no longer the prisoner of your own thinking.
The temptation is always to go back to repetitive thinking. There is a part of us that’s been conditioned to think that if we just think about it a little more, we will get the answer. Just notice the poor results of that philosophy.
If you are tired of being used, it’s time to begin the practice of observing. The price of freedom is your willingness to observe.
All the best,
John
http://cdbaby.com/cd/johnmorgan
http://www.cafepress.com/grasshoppernote/3580301
Be Sociable, Share!