You are not your thoughts

Most people believe they are fully responsible for the thoughts they create, that every thought they have is something they should believe or even more scary; that every thought is totally true, obviously to some extent this can be correct, but the key to success and a happy life, is to understand what thoughts are and how they can help or hinder you.

Everyday our thoughts guide our life (if you let them that is) you wake up and the thinking starts, it can be so powerful that this then runs your day, no matter what the script is; be it negative or positive. It can be hard to believe there is any other way, other than what our thoughts allow us to believe.

​I learnt a few years ago that my thoughts are not necessarily my own (my genuine opinion or created by me I mean), thoughts come from 100s of different places, from experience, they are attached to how we're feeling, what we see and what we hear feeds into them etc. We hear things every day that could potentially change the way we are thinking, for example if every morning you listened to the news or your favourite upbeat music; you could have a totally different thought pattern and ultimately be ruled by those thought patterns for the rest of the day. Now it's interesting to understand that as well as those thoughts effecting you and the way you then deal with life, you can also choose not to listen to those thoughts at all, what do I mean? Well just because you have a certain thought doesn't mean you have to accept it as true or pay any attention to it.

I would often feel guilty for thinking a certain thing, then I realised some of my thoughts made me feel so bad I couldn't possibly be creating them intentionally. Instead I realised my mind had given me a certain thought for whatever reason but that I could disregard it if I wanted to and get on with the moment. I did this by not carrying that thought on, instead I directed my thoughts to the moment or anything other than the negative thought.

Having understood the concept of thoughts, I then started to notice in other people how there thoughts were effecting and ruling them ( most often in a negative way). It was last year when I clearly saw it in a girl who attended my acting class, she had moved into a new group and had shared with me how worried she was about the new group, and how she didn't think she was going to fit in. She attended a few classes and I saw her thoughts getting the better of her, she was fixated on the fact that no one liked her. I told her it was all in her head, but she could only see what she BELIEVED to be true, when people were just getting on with themselves and I'm sure had no opinion on the girl at all. Needless to say she finally said she was going to leave the class as she just couldn't get on with the group, I knew how much she loved acting and could see it was all in her head, I explained to her how she couldn't always believe her thoughts and that sometimes thoughts come from all sorts of places, but in this case the thoughts were not actually what was happening. She couldn't understand it at first and proclaimed " how could my thoughts not be true, they come from me and I can see what's going on so it must be right". I left the information with her and went about my week, not expecting her to show up the following week, but she did! It was so interesting to see the way she behaved differently the following week, maybe it had been my assurance that people in the class liked her, but she came in with a different attitude and a year later she still loves the class and everyone in it, she even socialises with them outside of the class. I realised the thoughts in her head about the others had become so believable to her that she could no longer see reality for what it was, she could have changed the way she was thinking but she wasn't aware of what she was doing, her thoughts were just too believable.

Think about your thoughts for a second, do they often help or hinder you? Have you been in situations where you were sure of a certain thing and it turned out you were wrong?

I'm not sure why our mind acts like this, I've read many understandings of 'thought', including Ekhart Tolles; where he talks about the pain mind, which is keeping us constantly distracted by feeding us with negative thought chatter. And how Life coach Tony Robbins talks about how the mind is in survival mode, but there's nothing really threatening us like a sabre tooth tiger, so the mind protects us from the small things, it starts talking about 'does he or she like me', or other fearful, negative chatter as it attempts to survive modern life. It's trying to find ways to keep us from harm so it protects us from situations and people. This type of behaviour also focuses on how something could have previously failed and rather than saying oh well these things happen, it says things like "that failed before so don't do anything like that again", or "that relationship broke down' so that one will too", or "I trusted them and they let me down so I won't trust again". Our minds are doing there best to protect us, but it doesn't always know the best way of doing that.

Now I'm not saying the negative won't happen and of course we need to use common sense and be aware in every situation but seeing something as it is, is much more powerful than using the negative chatter to observe something.

Whatever the meaning behind it is, I know my thoughts in the past were often ruling my life and I know when they were negative I felt rubbish about life.

I have learnt not to put too much attention onto negative thoughts and to focus on being mindful or think about things that I'm thankful for, this really helps.

​Some patterns of thoughts you have might not be healthy and it's worth assessing your thoughts in relation to how you think and experience life.

Other things that have helped my mind and emotions keep on level; include using positive affirmations, meditation and exercise. I hope something in this post helps you keep in the best possible place and help you understand the way you work.

Peace and love to you and yours