Tiny Buddha

Tag: think

  • Think Less, Sense More: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

    Think Less, Sense More: How to Get Out of Your Own Way

    “I believe in intuitions and inspirations…I sometimes FEEL that I am right. I do not KNOW that I am.” ~Albert Einstein

    I’ve been thinking a lot. Maybe you have too?

    There’s a lot to think about these days.

    I’m taking in information, processing new ideas, adapting the conditions of my life to the current circumstances, and establishing new behaviors. Maybe this sounds familiar to you?

    All of this reasoning is primarily a frontal cortex function. When we understand and organize information, that function occurs at the front of the brain. This part of the brain creates order out of chaos. Structure from disarray.

    The threads of sensory and experiential input are woven together into an integrated fabric that turns disparate threads of information into something cohesive and comprehensible. Logic and language step in to further clarify and solidify the process. Our experience with the world around us becomes something that has meaning. It’s a handy tool. It’s a good part of our consciousness.

    An interesting and often overlooked fact is that our brain does much more than this. When we refer to someone as brainy, we are often referring to their intelligence. And by intelligence, we are often referring to fact-driven logical prowess. Our language reveals much about how we interpret our capacities.

    Even if we only take into account physical evidence, we possess a capacity for so much more. Our brains are more than brainy. Our intelligence is more than intelligent. We aren’t here only to make linear sense of things. Our existence suggests there’s more to it than that. Our purpose is bigger.

    Which brings me to this pandemic happening in tandem with a flailing economy, massive dysregulation of most systems that govern the rhythms of our lives, and a social awakening rippling through the core of our society. Which brings me to why I’ve been thinking a lot. I’ve been thinking because survival and purposeful existence in this world demands it.

    And.

    There’s always an “and.”

    Purposeful existence demands more than just thinking.

    The brainstem is located at the back of the skull, where the brain meets the spine. The brainstem regulates breathing and heart rate. It governs basic movement and sensory experiences by serving as a conduit for input from the spinal cord to the rest of the brain and vice versa. It’s the center of your most essential involuntary survival processes.

    This is the place of your most basic presence as a human. It’s your sign of life. There is no logic, no language, no sense or order here. The brainstem is a portal from the nervous system to the brain. Nothing in the portal is interpreted or coherent. It’s just nerve firings and stimuli, electrical currents and rhythms. A jumble of input with no meaning or filter. The brainstem connects your body to consciousness.

    This meeting place is potent. It’s the threshold between having a functioning, sensing, present body and the awareness to observe, understand, and trust into it. The brainstem is a liminal container, a transitory passageway of uncensored, unrefined experience.

    Meaning making is necessary, of course. The stories we weave from our conclusions about the world are essential (though they can also be dangerous if we get caught up in negative stories about everything that could go wrong).

    But, first, there is the elemental material of existence, the origins of presence. This is the fodder that transforms our presence into energy. Our existence into a resolute force.

    I’ve been offering myself permission to think less and sense more. I get out of the front of my brain and sink into the back of my skull, right where the skull curves away from my neck. That place behind my throat. Sometimes I take a deep breath into that space, unhinge my jaw, relax my tongue, and open my mouth to breathe out.

    Life has been unbelievably messy. No job. New job. New learning curve. No childcare. New living situation. Every habit I had a few months ago has been entirely reinvented. Most assumptions I had about how the world functions from day to day have been decimated. I’ve had to get creative. I can’t think my way through this.

    When I sidestep my intellect, something else emerges. When I breathe into the back of my skull another kind of intelligence informs me.

    Rather than thinking through or mulling over, I feel into something. I receive a nudge, a pull, an instinctive reflex to start in a particular direction, regardless of whether there is a path present or not. I’m nudged and so I go. It’s often messy, circular, and wayward. But I go, nonetheless. There is usually something there. The going is always worthwhile. And it is absolutely never what I expect.

    This place does much more than govern my heartbeat and my breath. It’s the place I write from. It’s the place I tap into while I’m teaching yoga, when I seek to nurture myself and those practicing with me. It’s the place I sink into when I feel uncertain and unmoored. I don’t get answers here, but I do get clear. It’s where I go for the essentials. The dwelling of my instincts. The gathering place of my sensitivity. The sparking nerve fibers of survival, function, and purpose.

    I’m getting out of the way. I’m diving into an ancient, intuitive, simple part of myself. I’m feeling and seeing in the most essential way I know how. The brainstem is a portal, connecting simplicity to intentionality. It’s a different kind of intelligence. I’m linking consciousness to my body, awareness to my experience. It’s as simple as that. And it’s so much more.

    Want to try it out? I find this practice is most visceral for me when I lie down, so if you can, find a good spot to recline and rest. If you can’t lie down right now, it’s okay. Just sit and get relaxed.

    Take a few breaths and sink into the place where you are. Let your body settle downward and feel present within your space. Become aware of your breath. Now, start to send your breath back to the base of your skull. Feel it swirl in that space where the back of your head meets your neck.

    Unhinge your jaw, get space between your teeth, and relax the tongue. Let your mouth drop open and sigh out from that space at the very back of the throat. Repeat a few times.

    Observe what it feels like to sink your awareness to the back of the skull. Also, get curious about what emerges when you lean into this space. What feelings, thoughts, images, ideas, or sensations come forward? What happens when you intentionally sidestep your reasoning mind and sink into a different part of your consciousness? What wonderful things could happen if you were to trust the most essential parts of you?

  • Don’t Believe Everything You Think

    Don’t Believe Everything You Think

    Don't believe everything you think

  • What People Think About Me

    What People Think About Me

    I care less about what people think of me

    Source: Steven Aitchison

  • The Introvert’s Brain: Why They Might “Think Too Much”

    The Introvert’s Brain: Why They Might “Think Too Much”

    Brain

    “Only those who care about you can hear when you are quiet.” ~Unknown

    I find it difficult to be understood. I seem to frequently create complexity out of something that is perhaps very simple and straightforward to others.

    For example, going to a movie. For many people, it would be “choose a movie, choose a time, choose a cinema” and there you go.

    For me, I check movie reviews, all possible timings, in all possible cinemas. For each timing and location, I will consider if the timing allows other things to be done before and after the movie, and whether the location has sufficient food and shopping options. All else being equal, the location with the cheapest parking fees wins.

    Yes, I take a long time to decide on a movie outing, and more on issues with much bigger consequences in life.

    In the recent years, I have had to make some rather big decisions about my life, on career and family. Judging from the process I go through to make a decision on a movie, you can imagine the epic journey I went through for each big decision.

    My brain had a field time linking every single option to different possible outcomes. Even issues that were once unlinked would somehow be connected to one another the more my brain was allowed to think. And after that, my brain took the liberty of developing Plan A, Plan B, and even Plan C for each scenario.

    Naturally, with such a repertoire of scenarios, my brain went round and round as it tried to take care of even the worst-case scenario.

    There is a saying that if you cannot do much about something, there is no point worrying about it. But I always feel that I can do something. I can mitigate the impact of bad outcomes if I take careful calculated actions—that is why I think, I plan, then I do. Only when the worst-case scenario could be taken care of would I be ready.

    To reach that stage, it took months (if not years). If I tried to explain to a select few friends that I trusted, I found myself bringing up the intricacies of each carefully-devised thought, fear, hope, and plan.

    Most of the time, I would elicit a response like “You think too much” or “Don’t be so pessimistic” or “Be more positive.”

    Perhaps the one that I dreaded to hear most was “be happy.” I was trying to be happy—I was taking charge of the difficult issues in my life, but in the process of sharing my elaborate thought process, it seemed to people that I was the one creating unhappiness for myself.

    In the end, I shut up.

    Perhaps it was my fault that I could not articulate my thoughts better. Perhaps I was too long-winded; people generally do not have the patience to listen to the epic journey in my brain. Perhaps they disagreed with some parts of my assumptions, or could not understand the situation sufficiently to appreciate my fears and concerns.

    Whatever the possible reasons, I did not want to be discredited for my thoughts and feelings. The epic journey had been too arduous to be brushed aside with “don’t think so much.”

    In a way, I wish I could stop that intricate elaborate deep-thinking process. I envy those who can just be happy-go-lucky, not think much, just do and deal with whatever consequences may come. However, science has shown that the brain is wired differently for introverts and extroverts.

    German psychologist Hans Eysenck found that introverts have naturally high cortical arousal and may process more information per second. They get overwhelmed and tired quickly in environments with a lot of stimulation, such as a loud restaurant.

    Positron emission tomography (PET) scans showed that introverts had more blood flowing in their frontal lobes and anterior thalamus, regions of the brain that recall events, make plans. and solve problems.

    It looks like I cannot help it, since I am born with this brain.

    With such a brain, all life experiences play a big part to stimulate and shape thoughts. Childhood, adolescent, social interactions, work, family—everything.

    As an introvert thinks, s/he connects all the dots, linking past and present experiences much more than extroverts would.

    Let’s say we have an introvert, born to a loving and nurturing family, who has close-knit friends and relatives and a cooperative work environment. And we also have one who is not. Which one is more likely to develop positive linkages and hopeful thoughts when forming their outlook in life?

    I guess I have come to accept that even good friends may not be able to understand me. Or they might label me as “the one who thinks too much” and has a high dose of pessimism. They may even start to stay away from me, as conventional wisdom advises that one should surround himself with positive and optimistic people.

    But I want to question: Do we just dismiss people because they appear “unhappy people” or “pessimistic people” at a point in time? Are they lesser beings just because they find it difficult to handle life as optimistically as others? Everyone has a story. At any point in life, maybe your story is happier than someone else’s.

    Let me illustrate using examples from some of my favorite animated movies.

    Mr Carl Fredricksen in the movie Up would be dismissed as a grumpy old man who offered no smile or generosity to even a little wilderness explorer. But he was not always unhappy. He happily fell in love and married, but lost the love of his life and his motivation when his wife passed away.

    Elsa the ice queen in the movie Frozen would be dismissed as cold-hearted and aloof, but what would you expect of a young girl who grew up locked up in a room because she nearly killed her baby sister and was deemed dangerous by her parents?

    Marlin the over-anxious father in the movie Finding Nemo was happily married and about to be the father of 400 children. Then a barracuda showed up, killed his wife, and ate all but one of the babies. The one baby that survived was born disabled. After carefully raising Nemo and letting Nemo attend school, the kid was immediately kidnapped by a human. Can you blame Marlin for his anxiety?

    Take heart though, those who truly care will know how to reach out.

    Mr Fredricksen, Elsa, and Marlin could have remained as they were had it not been for Russell (little wilderness explorer), Anna (Elsa’s sister), and Dory (the blue fish memorably voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) respectively.

    They cared enough to stick by their miserable companion/sister, to encourage and give support. They offered a different perspective to gently draw their friend out of their fears and doubts.

    I had always believed that only another introvert can understand and care for another introvert. But I am wrong. Russell, Anna, and Dory were extroverts and optimists.

    Although they might not have fully comprehended their introverted friends, they cared enough to never stop reaching out. I realize these are cartoon characters, but I’ve known Russells, Annas, and Dorys in my life and I appreciate and cherish them.  There are not many, but a few truly kind and caring friends are good enough for introverts.

    If you have had similar experiences as me, we should stop beating ourselves up for “thinking too much.” Whether we are blessed or cursed by our deep-thinking brain, we have to live with it and harness its strength.

    We are naturally empathetic and will be the ones that best offer comfort and support when others are down. What we say or do, we have thought through carefully. We are trusted for our steadiness and thoroughness, and ability to understand complexities.

    Yes, we can become more self-aware and accept that we have the natural tendency to go very deep. With that awareness, we can develop control over our brains to push ourselves to the surface once we have gone a little too deep.

    We can make miracles if we adapt these abilities to a world where extroverts are in the majority.

    In fact, they say the best teams comprise of an introvert and an extrovert (e.g. Apple’s Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg) due to complementary strengths and weaknesses. And let’s not forget Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Gates, Abraham Lincoln and Warren Buffett who are famous for their powerful introverted brains.

    On my part, I have learned to control how much I share, to control my tendency to articulate the epic journey of my decision-making process, lest I attract a “you think too much” remark.

    I have learned to be comfortable with the brain processes I have, and not feel the need to always justify my thoughts and decisions. Less is more, for people who cannot, will not try to understand us. And if anyone cares enough, they can hear even if we are quiet.

    Brain image via Shutterstock

  • What We Think We Become

    What We Think We Become

    What we think we become

    Source: Spirit Science

  • The Less You Worry About What People Think

    The Less You Worry About What People Think

    The Less You Worry

  • Think Less, Feel More

    Think Less, Feel More

    Get Out of Your Head

  • What You Think of Yourself

    What You Think of Yourself

    What You Think of Yourself

  • What Happens When We Don’t Say What We Think and Feel

    What Happens When We Don’t Say What We Think and Feel

    Talking

    “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ~George Bernard Shaw

    Can we just talk?

    Those words can be a buzzkill on dates, and yet talking is the most profound interaction we will ever have with another human being.

    A while back, my husband walked into the kitchen where I was reading an article on my phone and asked me if I had a chance to get a Father’s Day card for his dad (who lives in Canada). I said no I didn’t, and, since it was eight in the evening, I’d get it tomorrow.

    He put on his shoes, got the keys, and said, “I’m just going to get it,” then slammed the door.

    Now, this seems like an appropriate conversation; however, what I can’t relate through the computer is the tone of it. You know, that tone where you know there’s more to it then what was just uttered. Plus, the door slam was like a slap in the face.

    Immediately, my mind started accumulating thoughts about how I had messed up. How I place more emphasis on my own family, and he must feel I don’t do enough for his. I was spiraling into negativity and, within minutes, I was in that dark place of “I’m not good enough.”

    Usually I sit with this for hours and days; however, tonight, I couldn’t take it, and what I needed to say was busting through. We talked as soon as I took a few breaths and re-centered myself.

    I asked him if he was upset. He responded no, but he felt the need to go get the card that instant. I brought up slamming the door, and that it made me feel like there was more to the story.

    He agreed that he was upset because I didn’t look up from my phone to answer the question. AHHH relief! He just wanted my full attention during a conversation. He doesn’t think I’m the daughter-in-law or wife from hell.

    Me: Why didn’t you just ask me?

    Him: I feel like you should’ve known.

    Me: I’m not a mind reader and you aren’t a kid. Tell me what you need.

    There are so many miscommunications like this between us, like the time when our outside bar fell over in the wind and the glass top broke. He came outside and I said, “Oh it’s broken,” and he said, “Tell me the truth. What happened? Did you break it?”

    I was horrified. Where’s the innocent until proven guilty? I felt disrespected and like a liar. After talking about it I realized this happened because our past communication had been like this. Out of fear, I may have told a white lie or left out details.

    I further re-centered to realize that I had allowed us to talk this way to each other most of the time. I would get upset and then let it go. I didn’t state what I really thought or felt; not only did this not allow us to grow, but this allowed him to think everything was okay.

    I finally found the courage to state my boundary for communication in our marriage, starting with: can we talk.

    I would need more openness in our conversations. More direct communication about what you really mean to say rather than expecting that I “should just know.”

    I would need you to just say, “Hey, can your put down your phone so I can ask you a question?” Even simply saying, “I’m not sure what to say right now” is better than the silence, the hesitation, the pause, which gives my ego a meaning, a reason to put me down and spiral me into that dark corner.

    If you are telling me exactly what you need from me, and I from you, there is no interference, no misinformation, no blame, shame, or guilt in either one of us.

    This simple interaction of just talking completely transformed the communication in our marriage. It also gave me the power and strength to express what I will and won’t stand for in our marriage, or in any relationship in my life.

    Simply by talking. The energy around us becomes light, and we are able to accept the love that is between us. In honoring our words and our voice, we stand for the greatest human characteristic we have.

    Other animals mate, cuddle, and kiss, but talking, that’s only a human trait, and it’s the key to all human interaction, since it’s the only way anyone can know what we’re thinking and feeling.

    So talk, be vulnerable, say exactly what’s on your mind. Truth is, the other person may be thinking the same thing, and you could be the link that reopens communication and makes them feel human again. So let’s just talk…

     Couple talking image via Shutterstock

  • What We Think We Become

    What We Think We Become

    What We Think We Become

    Source: ReligiousQuotes.net

  • Stop Worrying About What Other People Think and Be Yourself

    Stop Worrying About What Other People Think and Be Yourself

    Be Yourself

    “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” ~Oscar Wilde

    Confession: I’m a master wallflower.

    In high school, a friend and I decided to skip our dreary computer class and roam the halls instead. The following day, our crabby teacher immediately reprimanded my friend for skipping class. I sat directly next to her, giggling and rubbing it in her face.

    The teacher didn’t even know my name, let alone that I had skipped his class the previous day. I rejoiced in my anonymity thinking, “It pays to be unknown.”

    To an extent, it was true. My friend was so disruptive and chatty that she couldn’t avoid trouble if her life depended on it. However, I didn’t just get away with things; I missed out on things.

    You can’t float through life anonymously. If you try, you’ll simply be dubbed as whatever people assume you are. (Spoiler alert: It’s usually inaccurate.) Sometimes you just have to be an active participant instead of an idle observer.

    The problem for me was that my needs always felt too obscure and alternative to everyone else’s.

    I attended a school where the teachers were keen on force-feeding us religious beliefs, which went against my need for tolerance and openmindedness. Thus I began to feel defensive expressing myself, assuming I’d be met with blank stares or opposition.

    Stop Tiptoeing

    You’d be hard-pressed to find a self-improvement resource without an encouraging reminder to “be yourself.” Why is that such a common struggle? What affects us so pervasively as we age, that remaining our “true selves” becomes a cryptic chore?

    Other people. We become more and more aware of other people: what they expect, what they want, what they think.

    Before you know it, that incredibly simple act of “being oneself” suddenly becomes a muddled minefield, where each person’s opinion of you is a potential explosion.

    So, it’s best to just tiptoe around, right?

    Not really. Being closed off is unsustainable, ineffective, and quite frankly, exhausting. It leaves you with a surplus of protection, but very little fulfillment and growth.

    Consider this liberating fact: You’re allowed to need things. You don’t have to apologize. It’s an obvious but effective reminder if you find yourself neglecting your needs.

    Some people only realize this after decades of failed tiptoeing, and sadly, some never realize it at all. But what does being yourself have to do with your needs? From my experience, when you don’t unveil your authentic self, you don’t get what you need.

    While others will occasionally know what’s best for us before we do, we’re often far more capable of deciding what we need. No matter how intelligent or well intentioned someone is, they may not understand what’s best for you.

    Assessing Your Needs

    Over time, I’ve realized that one of my greatest needs is good communication. When I’m detached and don’t have a solid circle of people to confide in, I get stressed very quickly.

    When our needs are fulfilled, we’re able to be who we are without restraints. Whether emotional or physical, our needs will make themselves known if we pay attention.

    1. Stop right now and think of something that you need and don’t have.

    It can’t be materialistic like a TV or a new purse, but something that the “real” you deeply needs. Maybe you’ve never even admitted it aloud to anyone, for fear they’d reject it or talk you out of it.

    2. Now give yourself complete permission to obtain whatever it is.

    If you’re anything like me, you may feel a peculiar weight being lifted from you—one that should’ve never been there in the first place.

    To assess yourself, just think of the people in your life who have achieved fulfillment. If you have any negative feelings like resentment or envy towards them, you’re probably not getting what you need. Otherwise, wouldn’t you be happy for them?

    Back to the Basics

    It’s hard for us to be our “true” selves because our true selves are innocent and vulnerable. Nowadays, vulnerability is about as fashionable as a fanny pack collection.

    We can edit photos of ourselves in Photoshop or post brief statuses about our lives that give the impression of flawlessness. We reject vulnerability in favor of impressions, making it harder for our authentic selves to emerge.

    As adults, it’s easy to let fear, anger, and sadness fill the hole of our unfulfilled needs. This can throw us off course, causing us to forget the original direction we once had in our youth. Thus, it’s primarily about piecing together the fragments, and as a wise baboon named Rafiki once said, “remembering who you are.”

    Being your authentic self doesn’t require you to add anything new to your life. It only requires you to subtract the things that are harmful, distracting, and unaligned with your goals.

    Your ability to be yourself is proportionate to how well you know yourself. For many of us, it may require a serious assessment and difficult decisions.

    In short, if your only reason for not achieving something is that other people won’t understand, that’s no reason at all. If what you want will help you grow, it’s your right and your responsibility to obtain it.

    Photo by Carlos Pantoja

  • Why Your Problems Are Not Nearly as Permanent as They Seem

    Why Your Problems Are Not Nearly as Permanent as They Seem

    Liberated

    “When we…go back into the past and rake up all the troubles we’ve had, we end up reeling and staggering through life. Stability and peace of mind come by living in the moment.” ~Pam Vredevelt

    There is a way in which we tend to view issues in our lives that makes it seem like the issue is a big, scary monster that chases us around everywhere we go.

    We have commitment issues. Or we are bad with money. Or we have an eating disorder, we drink too much, or we follow-through too seldom.

    We view ourselves and our lives as if they are stable, consistent entities that probably can change, but rarely do. We surely never change without considerable time, money, or effort.

    At one point in my own life, I definitely felt like I had weaknesses and issues, particularly around food. It felt as if they were mine, like I had ownership of them. They were part of who I was.

    It felt as if my “disorder” was a living, breathing monster that I would never fully shake.

    And that’s the way it goes. It begins to feel like the issue is always there, following you around.

    The monster might be right on your heels some days and further away other days, but it’s always there in some capacity. The monster might take naps or even hibernate, but there is the sense that it could wake up at any moment.

    If you’re too loud or not careful enough, the monster will wake up and be right at your back again. So there’s no resting, really. You never get too comfortable. I know I certainly never got too comfortable; always looking over my shoulder for the next time the monster would catch up with me.

    (It’s easy to see how we came to view it this way, between traditional, past-focused psychotherapy and popular addiction recovery movements that say things like “You’re an addict for life” and “One more drink and you’ll be exactly where you left off.”)

    So, guess what happens when it feels like fully resting is out of the question?

    You guessed it—you don’t rest. You’re on guard.

    You hold in the back of your mind the image of that monster waking up and beginning to run after you again.

    You never quite manage to let that thought go because you believe—you’ve been led to believe by well-meaning but misinformed professionals—that the issue is a part of you. Of course it would never occur to you to let go of something you believe you can never let go of.

    Each time the thought of your monster passes through your head, it feels ominous and meaningful. When something feels ominous and meaningful, you naturally pay it some attention.

    If you believe you are bad with money and you go a little overboard at Nordstrom one day, it’s very serious.

    If you believe you have commitment issues and the thought occurs to you to run from your relationship, you might actually act on that thought because it seems real. That thought appears as your reality, not as the fleeting, habitual but arbitrary thought it truly is.

    For me, because I was told I “had” a diagnosis and that diagnosis signified a real and stable thing, anything I ate became a very big deal in my mind. The very common and meaningless act of eating a meal began to mean a whole lot about who I was as a person and it said something—in my biased thinking—about my future.

    You Can Only Feel What You Think

    Aside from the fact that monsters are scary, the other problem with the monster-chasing-you metaphor is that it is completely, factually inaccurate. It is quite far from the truth of how your “issues” and experiences of life work.

    Your actual issues are nothing like a monster chasing you.

    A closer approximation of how it works is something like this:

    Your moment-to-moment experience is a reflection of your moment-to-moment thinking. Said another way, what you feel is only and always what you happen to be (consciously and unconsciously) thinking.

    Sometimes you think a lot about your issue. When you’re thinking about it— especially to the extent that your thinking seems real and true, as if it directly reflects reality—it appears as if you have the problem you are holding in your mind.

    When the thoughts you are experiencing seem like stable truth, you’re naturally locked into them. You elaborate on them, take them seriously, and inevitably act on them.

    But here’s the cool part: Your thinking changes. Often. It’s always changing in obvious and subtle ways. When your thinking changes, your experience changes.

    And, the thoughts in your head are not an accurate snapshot of outside reality. They are quite subjective and personal, actually. No two people see the same thing in the same way, so what you think is only what you think, much more than the way it is.

    The points above work together because the more you see that your thinking is very subjective and personally biased, the less you rely on and respect it as truth. The less you rely on and respect it as truth, the more frequently and naturally your thoughts change because you’re not holding them in place, identifying with them, and owning them as “yours.”

    There Is No Monster

    Since your experience in any given moment is exactly equal to what you are thinking in that very moment, that means that when you’re thinking about your monster, you feel your monster.

    And when you’re not thinking about your monster, your monster does not exist.

    When you’re thinking about your commitment phobia, how your parents damaged you for life, how you’re an incurable alcoholic, or how horrible you’ve always been with money, those issues (monsters) are alive for you in that moment.

    My eating issues were alive for me most of the time in those years solely because I was always thinking about them.

    But when you’re thinking about your cat, or pondering hard wood versus tile in your kitchen, those issues are not alive for you.

    It’s not that the monster is asleep, waiting to strike. It’s that the monster literally does not exist.

    You see, each moment of your life, you start anew. The inner slate of your mind is wiped clear.

    Because we tend to give some thoughts a lot of respect, and because we believe they reflect outside truth, those thoughts tend to come back often.

    In that way, it doesn’t always feel like the slate wipes clear. It feels like the monster is right on your heels.

    But actually, we have infinite potential for brand new thought, which equals infinite potential for brand new experience. We tend to get more new thought when we know that.

    In other words, when you think of your issue as the monster on your heels, that’s what you get. But only because that’s the way you’re thinking about it.

    When you see it more accurately, understanding that you’re only feeling what you’re thinking in any moment and that when your thoughts shift—as they inevitably will—you get limitless new thought which brings limitless new experience, it all changes.

    You see that you’re creating your life anew in each moment. There is no monster, unless you create him right now by thinking about him right now.

    Nothing is actually carried over from the past. Rather you might think right now about the past, but that’s just where your thoughts wandered.

    I’m happy to report that I have had no issues with food for many years. Eating when I’m hungry is a complete non-issue. This is not what my therapists told me would be the case. I was told that because I “had” the issue at one time, I would most likely always have it in varying degrees.

    I was told that I could learn to manage it, and that it may lie dormant if I was lucky, but that in times of stress it would most likely flare up again.

    Nothing could be further from the truth today.

    There is no monster. There never was. There’s only what we think, now. And then now. And then now.

    Of course, thoughts of our “problems” will drift into our mind. We’re only human.

    But because we see that they will also drift right out, there’s no reason to keep constantly looking over our shoulder.

    Photo by Jesus Solana

  • Don’t Believe Everything You Think

    Don’t Believe Everything You Think

    Dont Believe Everything You Think

    Source: Raw for Beauty