Living With Your Thoughts

In the first part of this two part series, You Are Not Your Thoughts, we set the scene as to how we deal with our negative thoughts, such as thoughts of anger, accusation and despair.

In summary:

# These thoughts arise automatically and are largely unconscious in their origination.

# These thoughts originate from the “hardware” and “software” in our brains.

# The best way of becoming more aware of the repetitive nature of these thoughts, and the triggers that give rise to them is by the practice of mindfulness.

# Because these repetitive negative thoughts are a short-cut key to the underlying associated negative energetic states and, because we live in an energetic universe , they are repetitively creating negative results in our lives.

This is what buddhists refer to as ”samsara” and what I call ”the ferris wheel of suffering”.

The 3 keys to living with these negative thoughts:

1. The key to dealing with these thoughts is acceptance.

2. The key to acceptance is realising that we are not one self but a composite of multiple selves.

3. A root cause of our suffering is that when we deny (suppress or repress) any one part of us we deny the whole; in other words, united we stand, divided I fall.

Developing A Good Working Relationship With Your Mind

A simple way to picture the mind is to imagine a ship on the ocean.

The ship floats on the surface of the ocean and its purpose is to navigate and transport you from one location to another. Think of the ship as your conscious mind with access to many of the tools at its disposal, for example: reasoning, calculation, speech and memory.

The ocean is your subconscious mind, it is deep, dark and mysterious and generates powerful currents which move the ship in the direction of their travel.

The sky is your higher consciousness often referred to as your higher self or higher power. The sky contains the clouds, the wind, the weather, the planets, the stars... the universe. Think of your higher self as your conscious mind's portal to the universe – or as I call it The Energy Of Life.

For the ship to navigate and transport you properly it needs access to the ocean and the sky. The better that access the better your journey!

The key to developing a good working relationship with your mind is to have tools, techniques and resources that work with all levels of your mind.

The objective is to have them all working together, moving you in the same direction, and at the same time!

Understanding Our Selves

As we discussed above, we need to understand that there is no singular "self".

The ego

When we talk of "myself" this is the conventional way of referring to our self image which is in fact the ego's construction of its sense of self.

I find it helpful to imagine the ego as our operating system and absolutely essential, in the same way "Windows 10" is essential for successful functioning of our laptops. It thinks it controls everything.

But as with "Windows 10", however clever it is, it is just a piece of software. So when we say me, myself or I, metaphorically, think of “Windows 10" with self awareness!

As we practice mindfulness, we find that in the spaces between our thoughts, we begin to experience that we are far more than this limited and conventional sense of self. We are not “Windows 10”!

The higher self

As we experience this we realise that we have a spiritual or energetic self and also that we have many unconscious aspects or selves that fall outside of the control of "Windows 10".

The unconscious mind

To extend the computer analogy think of our unconscious aspects or selves as the BIOS (the programme embedded on a chip on a computer's motherboard that recognizes and controls various devices that make up the computer).

The whole self

So to pull this together, when we talk of myself or I, what we are really referring to is the totality of all of it - of all of our unconscious aspects or selves, our conscious self (plus all its resources) and our spiritual self or higher self.

Where it all goes horribly wrong

Given that we are fundamentally energetic beings existing in an energetic universe we need to understand, relate to and work with our higher self. It is the portal to, in the conventional sense, everything "out there".

However, ”Windows 10” is not an energetic being but it thinks it is!

Its sphere of operation is defined by our sensory perceptions. For "Windows 10" seeing is believing. Because its role is to control it thinks it does (or should) control everything. This is, of course, a major delusion. This is where the whole teaching in mainstream belief systems of "dying to the self" or "dropping the self" comes into play.

The BIOS is just the BIOS. It comprises large numbers of programmes or selves that we can associate with an activity or an attitude. For example "smoking self" or "happy self".

In the realm of the BIOS there is no right or wrong, no better or worse, no value judgements, there are just programmes running automatically on repeat mode.

Because we exist in a realm of duality, for every self that exists or is created there is an opposite.

So, the opposite of smoking self is non-smoking self and the opposite of happy self is unhappy self.

This is why we said earlier, that when we deny, suppress or repress our negative thoughts it is a root cause of our suffering because we are denying a part of ourself.

To stop smoking we have to accept smoking self and consciously choose non smoking self.

However the choice alone is not enough, it needs to be empowered and this power comes from our higher self - when we ask it.

The resourceful approach to our negative thoughts is:

* To acknowledge and accept them.

* To choose the opposite self to each troublesome thought.

* To tap into the incredible power of our higher self to reinforce and secure that choice.

* To access that power by asking for it.