“Don’t believe everything you think. Thoughts are just that, thoughts.” ― Allan Lokos, Pocket Peace
Like most men and women going through this process of loss and pain, I found myself playing the same thoughts over and over in my head. What I realized is that I always ended up more upset and unbalanced until something else grabbed my attention with an end result of being so pissed I could chew nails!
However, one morning as I lay in bed and playing the tape in my head, I noticed that I was doing it and it felt like I was watching someone else thinking these thoughts. Having this awareness and not getting taken over by the thoughts of what was being played out created space, a sort of stepping back from the mind made drama. The feeling I had was one of curiosity and relief that the pain of my thoughts wasn’t running away with me. I found this process of emotional mind chatter very exhausting and I was tired of the whole thing. In the book, Autobiography of a Yogi (Pg242) Paramahansa Yogananda describes this mind chatter as “Roundy sensations & restless thoughts” which they are if you are aware enough to sense it without getting possessed by it.
In those moments when you feel the tide rising of resentment and anger just take a deep breath and count from 5 backwards. What you are trying to do is put a little space between the initial feeling and reacting to it. If you get taken over by the thoughts and there is no way in hell you won’t at times. Just bring it back to your breath and awareness or center once it plays out.
To help end this cycle of painful thoughts, I got the idea to write down and follow the trail of thoughts that seem to keep coming up again and again. What I noticed is it seemed to follow a pattern with some new thoughts entering, but mostly the same key feelings of loss, anger, betrayal which lead from one to the other.
As I said, I was curious to see how they played out and were it would take me…so I got a pencil and notepad and started writing down the thoughts one after another.
As one thought lead to another, I noticed more powerful emotional hooks that moved the trail along to the next thought. As I wrote, I decided to write it down as a wheel or clock face with each triggering thought as one of the hours on a clock. These circles of thought lead back to the top were the pattern would start all over.
It sort of looked like this Illustration from the book Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud.
You may have a number of tapes that you play, but I noticed just one seemed to be playing out more than any other for me. What I learned later is this attachment to anything outside myself and emotional hooks of the ego will always trap you in a process of continual pain.
It’s as if your ego is its own entity controlling the knowing loving part of you by keeping the mind chattering going from thought to thought never caring about anything but maintaining its control. The ego wants to keep the continual cycle of “worthless thoughts” going and going. It controls us by seeing more ways to create more drama and more pain. It judges everyone and everything including yourself making you less important and everyone else more important. Has anything your ego ever done in stressful situations ever really help? At its worst it blames and accuses keeping you in the mundane and trivial emotional side of life and does not allow the nurturing loving aspects of your true nature to come through. Being joyful and at peace is our true nature. We have to relearn and take back control of our thoughts by putting space between the continual thinking, worrying and fear, so that you can see clearly and feel the peace of your true nature.
The truth is you are a loving caring spiritual being having a fucking amazing physical experience with added pain and drama to keep it interesting (mostly added by us). This also allows you to make choices giving you the options to open up your heart more and more hopefully learning some things along the way. Because time gives us perspective, you will find as the months and years go by your attitude about this situation will change for the better, if you have the courage to keep an open heart.
Vincent Cole of Innerself.com says it this way;
“An ego-based identity seeks only that which strengthens it. All else is seen as a threat. Therefore, in the beginning, as you take the next step in evolution, you will feel a conflict, a division within yourself as a new way of being struggles to emerge. This is an important and beneficial awakening. Be patient but also be strong.
It will be a great temptation to go back to what is familiar. The ego will seek that which is known, that which it sees as safe. Even a painful life is preferable to the ego than having to face the unknown. During times of conflict the ego retreats into the familiarity of old beliefs and routine actions, while the True Self instinctually moves forward towards new experiences, new understandings, and a new way of being in the world. Conflict arises during these periods of transition as you move from the past into the future, uncertain of the next step.” From the website Inner Self ; https://innerself.com/content/personal/spirituality-mindfulness/4216-ego-vs-true-self-by-vincent-cole.html
Let’s discuss ways of creating this space and diffusing the emotional heavy energy.
Stopping the Cycle of Painful thoughts:
Ask yourself what feelings and pain you observe over and over again and need to express?
If you want to stop some of the madness do this, write down the thoughts you have that are the habitual emotional themes that keep coming up one after another during different times. If the morning is strongest do it then, this was the case for me. I would wake up and lay in bed and the dogs of my thoughts where off to the races with one thought and emotion after another.
Write them down and keep doing it over a week or so and see if a pattern comes up. What you may notice is that it comes back to the first thought. Once you know how your emotional head works in this situation you can actually get the piece of paper you wrote down these key emotional triggers and when they start up again just grab the paper and read the thoughts one after another. What I found when I did this I didn’t get hooked by each one it was as if I was reading about someone else. Without letting the emotional component come into play it gave me space to release some of these thoughts and actually go to the farthest point being aware of them but not being controlled by them. Try it because you have nothing to lose by doing it and everything to gain if you can slow the Psycho-head machine down a little bit.
What I found is that I could stand back and observe what I needed to process instead of being weighed down by the heavy emotions feeling like shit with the monkey mind running around and around. This is a tool I used to put more space in-between all the stuff of my head and emotional heaviness that came with it. For me it seemed to dissipate the emotions sooner, so that I could think clearly without feeling the anguish and ache. After a while once the head would start thinking negative thoughts I could just picture the paper and see that it was a waste of time. Try it and see if it works for you or at least helps slow down the obsessive thinking.
“Clinging negative thoughts and unmet wants will feed the ego and be your next lesson” – W.A.S
Since you are going through this heavy time it would help to start seeing what you believe in all aspects of your life, what do you believe about yourself? About your ideal relationship or religion or friends. I think it is a perfect mirror showing you how you experience your life.
Arnold Patents in his writing on Universal Principles statements # 6 says this about beliefs; “A belief is a thought hooked to a feeling. The feeling gives the thought a perception of power and creates an illusion that is experienced as real. Under the guidance of our Souls, we adopt beliefs to provide us with the precise experiences we are having, and that we planned before we entered this realm. The urge to explore life beyond our beliefs is a signal that our Soul Selves are ready to guide us in freeing the flow of Divine Love, disguised by our beliefs”. I have also heard him say that an emotion is the love energy passed through a belief system.
To create this space and move from your head to your heart is very needed at this time. This space you are trying to sense and widen is the silent space between thoughts that keep firing at you by your own mind and no thoughts.
What is the reason for this you may ask, it is to ultimately stop the madness in your head and over time and clear the energy quicker so that you can balance and come to a place of forgiveness and possibly some peace of mind.
As I mentioned previously, once I would start the story in my head I would reach for the “emotional clock” I had written out and just read through it quick. This seemed to ease the emotional depth I would plunge to until I realized that I all this mind chatter was wasting my time and energy. It was if I was reading a story about someone else which helped me view the way my mind was controlling me. I felt that I could clear the energy faster until it held no power over me and I knew this by the lighter feeling I had in my body and not the thick emotional heaviness that came with being in the drama of my mind.
When you do this try to stay very aware of your body, breath slowly and feel the emotions ebb and flow as your thoughts go from one thing to another until it slows and eventually stops. Other thoughts may come in, but you will notice that they won’t be the heavy-duty emotional thoughts that always used to hang around.
The key is to observe the emotions and how your ego is working without getting totally hooked by it. Granted this sounds easier than it may seem at first, but by creating this gap the emotional runaway will slow down and stop over time.
Now this awareness did not happen overnight but came over time and once it did an ease and lightness came over me which would stay longer and longer the more I practiced. Not having my thoughts take control and have a complete hold over me emotionally was amazing. This space to breath without pain and all the mind chatter and emotions attached to it felt really good. Knowing that I had controlled my thoughts and emotions was a victory and a milestone in becoming the man I wanted and knew I could be.
Maybe for a short time at the beginning but the more I was aware of this process the less and less the chatter happened. This gave me an opportunity to move in a more positive direction and replace the pain with love.
One of my favorite ways of seeing this action of getting hooked is by Pema Chodron. She writes “So when you’re like a keg of dynamite just about to go off, patience means just slowing down at that point — just pausing — instead of immediately acting on your usual, habitual response. You refrain from acting, you stop talking to yourself, and then you connect with the soft spot. But at the same time, you are completely and totally honest with yourself about what you are feeling. You are not suppressing anything; patience has nothing to do with suppression. In fact, it has everything to do with a gentle, honest relationship with yourself.” From the Pocket Pema Chodron (#43 “When Anger Arises remember to pause” pg 68-69. Originally from her book Practicing Peace in times of war pgs 41-42”)
