Session 7
Not going along with thoughts
Our thoughts have a major influence on how we feel and how we behave. Research by the American psychologist Timothy Brown has shown that people have an average of 40,000 thoughts per day of which at least 70% are negative. It can be liberating when we realize that thoughts are just thoughts and not reality. If you see thoughts as ‘just thoughts’, then you can avoid being drawn into the negative spiral. You can then choose to let thoughts pass, without taking them seriously, without going into them further. You may think: “Oh, there you have another thought.”
The story in your head
John walked to school. He dreaded the math lesson. He wondered if he would be able to keep order today. It wasn’t part of a janitor’s job.
What do you notice when you read the sentences?
Most people notice that they have to adjust their image from one sentence to the next. First it is a boy who goes to school and dreads the math lesson. Then the image suddenly changes to that of a teacher and in the end it turns into a janitor.
This illustrates how we draw conclusions from a situation from the bare facts we read. We are constantly interpreting the world around us. In addition, we fill the empty holes.
Many of our thoughts are not facts but interpretations! Our mind makes a constant report of all the events that take place in our mind. We can interpret the same situation in different ways, this affects our emotions. But also vice versa.
If our mood is bad, we are more likely to give a negative review than if we are in a good mood. People who are somewhat depressed tend to explain things more negatively. Beliefs such as ‘people can’t be trusted’ or ‘I’m worth nothing’ can then arise. Once that saboteur or inner bully is speaking, it’s hard to stop.
As humans, we tend to take what we think to be true. However, thoughts are not facts, they are just thoughts. They are your servants, not your master. In other words, thoughts have no power of their own. They only become powerful when you give them that power. No matter how loud your thoughts scream, they can’t do anything. You are the boss, if you realize this then this gives you enormous freedom. You are not tied to this trigger mechanism, you decide.
Sounds and thoughts
We are always surrounded by sounds. Stop reading for a moment and take a moment to focus your attention on the sounds in your environment. Maybe you hear a plane, noise from your neighbors or your roommates. The sound of your breath, cars passing by, the heating. The list is endless. Even the silence harbors sounds. It never falls silent. So there are sounds from the outside and there are also sounds from the inside. Both come up out of nowhere and we have no control over them. Both have the ability to provoke emotions. Just as your ear picks up sounds, your mind can pick up your thoughts. Your mind tends to give an explanation with every sound e.g. I hear a car . Thus, your mind activates a chain of associations with your thoughts . It reminisces or it makes you wander into the future.
You can compare your thoughts to the radio in the background, you don’t have to go into what you are catching. You can also just observe the thoughts.
For example, you may notice that there are judgmental thoughts, or that you fantasize, or comment. Is the tone friendly and soft or hard and strict. Is the thought softly whispered in the background or does it scream loudly in your head.
Your mind tends to make the thoughts personal. However, you are not what you think. There is a part of you that can observe these thoughts without you having to go along with it or find anything. This way you don’t get identified with it or less with it. A distance can then arise that can help you to look at it calmly and that can provide clarity.
There are still a number of things you can do if you suffer a lot from all kinds of (negative) automatic thoughts:
1. Doing the five minute exercise. By doing a five-minute exercise you step out of the situation, as it were. This makes it easier to relax and take some distance from the difficult situation. After such an exercise look you might get back with a fresh look at the difficult situation.
2. It can help when you write down your thoughts. By thinking. Writing can reduce the emotional charge and allow you to be more objective towards your mind watching.
3. You can ask yourself the following questions, do this in a friendly and curious way:
- am I confusing a thought with a fact?
- do I think (too) black and white?
- am I jumping to conclusions?
- am I judging myself?
- am I thinking doom?
- am I making too high demands on myself so that I will fall short?
- am I judging myself?
- do I focus on my weaknesses and forget my strengths?
- am I mind-reading or predicting the future?
4. Ask yourself the question did this thought suddenly and automatically enter my head? Does it correspond to the actual situation? Is there anything I can question? How would I get there at another time, what has changed your mind? Are there other points of view?
5. Do a thought meditation. In this meditation you accept that there are all kinds of thoughts are, but you don’t have to think through them. You will then see all the thoughts as ‘mere thoughts’, rather than as facts. Because you think less on your thoughts and taking them less seriously you may feel less annoying.
The Hare and the Wise
One day a hare was sleeping under a mango tree. Suddenly he was startled awake by a loud noise. He thought this meant the end of the world and started running. When the other hares saw him running like this, they asked, “Why are you running so fast?”, and he said, “Because the world is going to end.” When they heard this, they all followed him in his flight.
The deer saw the hares running and asked, “Why are you running so fast?” and the hares replied, “Because the world is dying.” “No,” said the deer, “is the world dying?”, and they themselves became so frightened that they joined the fleeing group.
Thus, one species after another joined the fleeing group, until the entire animal kingdom had panicked. This would certainly have meant the demise of the animal kingdom if not...
If it weren’t for an old, wise woman standing at the exit of the forest. She saw the animals running by in panic and asked the last group why they were fleeing. The animals replied, “We flee because the world is going to end.” “That can’t be true,” said the old woman, “because the world isn’t coming to an end yet, so I have to figure out why you think this.”
She then interrogated one species after another, following the trail back to the deer and finally to the hares. When the hares told her that they were so holding because the end of the world was near, she asked which hare had told them. They pointed the hare at her.
The wise woman then turned to the hare and asked, “Where were you and what happened when you thought the world was going to end?”
The hare replied, “I was sleeping under a mango tree and heard a loud noise.” The old woman said, “You may have heard a mango fruit fall to the ground, startled awake and thought the world was going to end. Let’s go back to the tree to see if that’s the case.’
The hare and the wise woman returned to the forest, found the tree, and saw that a mango had indeed fallen near the place where the hare had been sleeping. And so the animal kingdom was saved from destruction.
The thought meditation
In this exercise you focus your attention on your thoughts. You don’t have to think through on your thoughts, just perceiving that they are there. The exercise can help you to worry less, to suffer less from negative thoughts and to let go of thoughts. Thought meditation is a very difficult form of meditation for some people. While in the other meditations you learn to return to your breath, for example, in this meditation you have to focus on the thoughts. For many people, that feels strange.
The idea behind the meditation is that you learn to see thoughts as ‘just’ thoughts, which you do not have to go on any further and which pass by themselves. So you change the value you place on your thoughts. Normally you take them very seriously and they also influence your actions. With this meditation you learn that you do not have to go into your thoughts in detail. You observe them and let them pass. This makes it easier to deal with worrying thoughts: you don’t go into them further, consider them as ‘just thoughts that pass anyway.’ It can be liberating when you realize that thoughts are just thoughts and do not reflect reality. When you see thoughts as “just thoughts,” you can avoid being pulled into a negative spiral. You can then choose to let thoughts pass, without taking them seriously, without going into them further.
For example, you can see your thoughts as clouds passing by in the sky, or leaves floating on the river.
Exercises for next week at session 7
1. Do the thought meditation 3 times this week.
2. Choose which meditations you want to do in the coming week. You can combine different exercises with each other Also think, for example, of doing something with attention.
3. Fill in the list of activities below.
Write below all the activities you do on any given weekday, from the moment you get up until you go back to bed.
E.g. showering, getting up, getting dressed, having breakfast.
When you’re done with the weekday list, add activities you do on weekends. E.g. shopping, going to the cinema, cycling, visiting family.
When you’re done with the list, put a + if it is an energy giver - if it is an energy guzzler
Answer the following questions:
How can you make more time for positive things (energy givers) or how can you be more aware of them? How can you approach doing the energy guzzlers less often or how can you soften the resistance?
You can also discuss these questions with others, perhaps they also have good ideas about this.
When you are more aware of what you do in a day and what it does to you, you can choose more consciously. You are not an automaton that performs everything indiscriminately, but you have a large part of control over the activities that you do or have to do or think you have to do. You can think about your situation and consciously choose more energizing activities. You may wonder what energy-hungry activities should be and, if not, what can you do to change your relationship with them. What makes something an energy guzzler? It stimulates your creativity and ability to solve problems. See if you can organize your life in this way and if you can change your experience of the activities in such a way that you experience satisfaction every day.
Dilemmas
I find it easier to write down negative things than positive ones.
Ask yourself how that is possible? Are there also ways to be more aware of the positives?
It often has to do with a one-sided view of things. An eye for the negative and no eye for the positive. Explore your options for paying attention to the positives as well. Just the fact that you do it with attention changes your view.
There may be beliefs underneath:
• I feel guilty when I make time for myself.
• There are things in life that you don’t have a choice in, like going to work.
• You can only do something fun when you have fulfilled all the obligations.
• I’m so busy, where should I find time for myself?
• My parents need my help, it would be wrong if I thought of myself
There is a great deal of similarity between these comments. They generally seem to mean that there is no other way. If we want things differently but our thinking says nothing will change anyway, we are stuck.
Now suppose that by becoming more aware of what is happening, we pay more attention to ourselves, even though we are busy with things. Is it possible to find a hole under the most hectic circumstances, so that taking care of yourself is not a luxury. Taking action starts with simply noticing what’s going on around you. You can do every action with attention, be aware of it. That immediately helps to be present in the here and now without judgment. Put the emphasis on your sensory experience and you’re back.
At first I thought: ‘don’t think about it’, I did that then, but two seconds later, I thought about it again. No, it’s not that simple, because you know, what you do, you also think about it when you think, that you shouldn’t think about it.
Toon Hermans
We have now reached the end of week 7. You have read the texts, done the assignments, listened to the audio files daily and thought about yourself in this way. Now briefly summarize what you have learned from this session.
1. What do you take away from this session
2. what are you going to do next week
3. What will this bring you?
