Before we get rid of thoughts, let’s try to understand what they are. We can think and reflect, but have you tried to observe thoughts, explore them, explore the space where these thoughts appear?
Let’s do the following exercise: just try to observe and record the fact that one thought replaces another, while trying not to get involved in them.
After numerous observations of thoughts and research related to them, I came to the following conclusions (You may disagree with this, I even encourage you to do so, but conduct your own research):
- At this point in time, not a single thought has been caught in the “jar” by scientists, has not been dissected and studied with the ability to identify what it is about. In spite of this, we all know that a thought exists.
- Thought is everything that appears in the Mind (the space where we observe thoughts) – fears, blocks, habits, addictions, ideas, beliefs, concepts, expectations, limitations, fantasies, dreams, past, future, and so on.
- Humans don’t have the tools to create thoughts. We can only receive them if we are ready for them. Our mind is like a stage where thoughts come and go, and some remain to “perform” further.
- The more attention we give to thoughts, the stronger they become, and the faster they manifest themselves in reality or have an impact.
- Now, in most cases, humans’ attention is automatically directed to thoughts. This is the biggest reason why people suffer, get sick, are in hell during their lifetime (there is no other) – not the thoughts themselves. The problem is automatism, not the thoughts.
- The nature of thoughts is chaotic. If you tried to do the exercise given at the very beginning, you might have noticed that many thoughts are not related to the previous ones: they appear as if by accident.
- Thought is a useful tool. With the help of thoughts, we can create, communicate, understand, learn new things and just live. It is an integral part of our lives, but thoughts don’t belong to us, they are from the outside. All people have the same access to all thoughts, but what we get depends on our willingness to understand them, our limitations, filters, and beliefs.
- Thoughts can be controlled through attention. You can set parameters for thoughts, which ones to use and which ones not to use, through commands to the mind.
- There are no bad or good thoughts, there are useful ones at a given time and place and not.
After we’ve looked at what thoughts are, let’s look at 7 ways to get rid of thoughts:
METHOD 1
don’t MAKE THOUGHTS RELEVANT
We need to understand what a thought is.
Humans don’t have a tool for creating thoughts. All thoughts you have in your mind are not yours.
We need to understand that any fear, any thought, any desire, any trouble, any addiction, any habit, attachment and any, even the most hidden things from the subconscious are just thoughts. Just thoughts. Fear is a thought, block is a thought, jealousy is a thought, habit is a thought, attachment to someone is also a thought. Fear of the future is a thought, fear of the past is a thought, some kind of anxieties, any “What if” – these are also thoughts.
Everything that makes us unhappy is thoughts, but not the fact of having them, but our attention automatically being in the thoughts. This is exactly the reason why we will train our attention, the skill itself.
The first method. All you need to do is not make the thoughts relevant. You need to understand that this is just a thought, it’s not yours. Someone gave it to you: society, parents, family, the state, the country where you grew up, or some beliefs, or the main characters of some books or films. It doesn’t matter where this thought came from. You need to understand that any beliefs you have are not yours. Because any beliefs are just a thought. You need to try to understand that this is just a thought. It’s a thought. I’m not going to make it relevant, it’s just a thought. Stop making relevant thoughts you have. Even if some brilliant idea has come up, don’t attach importance to it, don’t get involved in it. It is important to understand that this is just a thought. Thought is a useful tool, nothing more than a fork or a spoon. Different tools are useful only in certain situations. It would be awkward, even impossible, to sew with a spoon, for example.
METHOD 2.
CLOSE ATTENTION TO A THOUGHT
This method is quite closely related to the first one, but it works somewhat differently. You need to direct your close attention to the thought: I see you, I see you, you are a thought. This kind of close attention. Try not to get involved in the thought. Understand that what you already have in your mind, what you are thinking about, is a thought. Realize, “Oh! It’s a thought. And I can see you.” And then the thought will stop influencing you, it will disappear, it will not be able to withstand such attention.
A thought begins to work when you get involved in it, when you unfold it, when one thing appears, then another, when twigs grow out of the thought. That’s how it works. But when you give such close attention, “I see you. You are a thought,” when you recognize a thought and begin to understand exactly what it is, then you automatically stop getting involved in it. This is the second way, and it can be trained in exercises. By the way, by directing close attention to the thought, you can distinguish a thought from intuition: a thought will disappear, but intuition will remain.
METHOD 3.
SWITCHING ATTENTION
This method is about switching attention from a thought to the body, from a thought to the feeling, from a thought to the present moment, from one thought to another. It doesn’t matter where. When any thought appears: fear, grudge, block, addiction, some expectations or, perhaps, jealousy, you just need to switch your attention: “What do I feel when I have such a thought?” You can switch your attention to the body, to some part of it. It can be an arm or another arm, legs, torso, or the whole body. You can switch your attention to feelings: “What do I hear when I have such a thought?” This also applies to emotions.
It is necessary to understand what emotion is.
Emotion is a consequence of thought. Something happens, or a thought appears regardless of the events, and we evaluate this thought as good or bad. This evaluation of thoughts causes a biochemical reaction in us. We mark it as positive or negative, and then our mind gives a signal to the brain, the brain gives a positive or negative signal to the body, and we begin to experience either joy or, conversely, aggression, anger, apathy, depression and so on. At this point, we begin to feel our emotions. But initially it’s a thought. And even at this time, we can just switch our attention. “How do I listen during depression? How do I feel the sounds when I have apathy? What happens to the smells when I get angry?” and so on. This applies to all emotions, both good and bad. It applies to any thoughts.
This method is trained by special exercises that are available in the application. But you can switch your own attention from mind to body, from thought to body by yourself. We will strengthen this skill with different exercises, with different objects for switching attention, so that it becomes natural and easy to do, without tension.
These are three simple methods that allow you to switch instantly. Bang, as if on a click, and you switched over. You had thoughts, problems, and then you just… switched.
The following two methods will develop our ability not to get involved in thoughts all the time, so that thoughts don’t affect our lives all the time.
METHOD 4.
EXPAND ATTENTION IN THE MIND,
This method may sound unbelievable and even strange. It can also be trained with the help of attention.
We need to create a distance between our attention and thoughts. To do this, we direct our attention not only to the mind (the mind is the space where we observe thoughts), but slightly wider than the mind. We try to create a distance so that it remains constant, not only at a certain moment.
Let’s imagine that the mind is a stage where thoughts perform. With the help of attention, we can see thoughts even before they enter the stage, notice them even before they come to our mind, and see them earlier. This gives us time to decide whether to follow them or not, use them or not. You create a distance. To me, it looks something like this: my thoughts are somewhere far away, they are 100 meters away from me, I see them, but I cannot recognize them, I cannot recognize what this thought is about, who this thought is for, what these thoughts are doing. They may be playing cards, but I don’t know who is playing cards, I don’t know the game, I don’t know what cards they have. I just feel that I have these thoughts, but I have created a distance between my attention and thoughts.
As soon as I need a thought, I kind of call it, and it comes to me. I direct my attention to the thought I need right now. For example, how to record a video properly, or how to buy a ticket, or how to solve a problem. I use the thoughts at the moment.
It is necessary to do more than just dismiss the thoughts. We need to try to learn to use our thoughts for real, and for this we need to learn to control our attention. To do this, we need to manage it.
When we don’t need certain thoughts, we don’t use them, and if we do, we use them as much as we need. Our attention is often automatically attracted by thoughts about the future or the past. If all our attention goes to such thoughts, we begin to suffer.
This is one of the best methods to create a distance between your attention and your mind, between your attention and your thoughts.
METHOD 5.
UNFOCUS ATTENTION IN THOUGHTS
This method is a bit similar to the previous one, but it is trained and used in a different way.
Imagine that you have a thought – any fear, the most frightening one. Let’s say a shark with bloody teeth. You swim and you get this fear. You haven’t seen the shark yet, but you have an idea about it. You can unfocus your attention in your mind in the same way as you can unfocus your gaze. The shark should turn from a scary object, from a scary character into a blurred silhouette. And you will have nothing to fear, you can no longer see the teeth, you have already stopped feeling that these are bloody teeth. You stopped being afraid because the silhouette is blurred, there is nothing to be afraid of, there are no details.
In the same way, you can constantly unfocus your attention in your thoughts. Not completely, but partially, in order to at least roughly understand what the thoughts are about, but without any details. You will see that thoughts are near you, you’ll feel them, you’ll see a fresh thought that has just come, but you will not pay attention to it because it is unfocused. You don’t know exactly, it can’t get you, because some blurred object can’t get your attention, you can’t recognize it. Then you cannot get involved in it. This can be trained by unfocusing your vision. We will do several exercises that will train this aspect and develop the ability to unfocus the vision.
With these exercises, you will unfocus your vision, see everything at the same time almost 180 degrees, and maybe a little wider, but don’t focus on one thing. Just see, but not focus.
This was the fifth method. By the way, it is very easy to master for those with poor eyesight. It’s like you take off your glasses and stop seeing details. You can do the same in your mind, in your thoughts: constantly ignore these details, don’t react to thoughts. It will certainly take some time to learn how to unfocus your attention in your thoughts. This skill is trained along with the development of your attention. Focusing your attention in your mind on unfocusing your attention in your thoughts.
METHOD 6.
THE PRESENT MOMENT
To understand how this method works, it is best to do an exercise. Start feeling pressure on your head. You can just take a moment to feel the pressure on your head, and you’re instantly taken into the present moment. As soon as you get to the present moment, the thought will lose its power, it will disappear. You can do this all the time or only when necessary.
If you start to get overwhelmed by some thought, attachment, habit, or you experience a panic attack, or some kind of fear, you can just start feeling pressure on your head. This will help you to be in the present moment.
This is a very effective way to stop being influenced by any thoughts, any fears, even the deepest ones or those that are in the subconscious. They will stop influencing you, you will be able to get rid of them.
These are 6 easy methods.
METHOD 7.
DOUBT: WHAT IF MY PAST ISN’T MINE?
The seventh method is really difficult. Perhaps not everyone will be able to understand it or try to apply it.
This is something that works for me all the time. This is what helped me get rid of all the fears that I had in the past. A simple question: “What if your whole past is not yours?” Just like that: “What if your whole past is not yours? What if someone gave it to you?” It’s like you watched a movie or read a book. Everything that was there is just fiction. All the past that you remember, all your childhood memories, all your teenage memories aren’t yours, someone gave them to you.
I’ll try to explain. You wake up every day and you have information about who you are: your name, your hobbies, your phobias, your fears. You know these people, you love these people, you don’t like these people, you have enemies and so on. Every day, when you wake up, you get information about who you are, and you live based on this information.
Where did all this information come from? How do you know what happened to you? How do you know it was real? And yes, your answer is: “From memory, of course.” And you are absolutely right. Of course, the memory. But think about it, how many percent of your life do you really remember? Do you remember every day, every second of your whole life? Or do you only remember something selectively, some highlights? Sad, sorrowful, joyful, happy, when you experienced happiness or love, falling in love and so on. Isn’t it strange that we only really remember some bright moments? It’s similar to how we remember movies that consist of highlights. Where is everything else? The rest is just not there.
And even what we remember is no longer real. Our memories are very often distorted by our influence or the influence of those around us. The way we remember what happened is unreliable. When we tell the same story many times, it takes on new shapes and may differ from what happened in reality.
There are scientific studies that show that human memory is imperfect. They can be easily found on Youtube or Google. I just want to make it clear that we cannot trust our memory.
I don’t really know what happened to me yesterday. I cannot be 100% sure about this, as well as about what happened to me the day before yesterday, a week ago, a month ago, six months ago, a year ago, 2 years ago, 3, 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago. I really can’t be sure about that.
As soon as it struck me, as soon as I truly felt it, a doubt crept up in me. This doubt is justified because I really cannot be sure of my memory. This is very difficult to understand. I’ve been arguing with myself about this for five days. How so? It’s impossible, I remember. I have a good memory, I remember many things from my life.
At some point, I realized that I couldn’t be sure of my memories. I remember certain things, but I can’t be sure they weren’t planted on me. If someone created our world or something else changed it, why was it so difficult to keep images, photos, videos and the like in our memory?
This is life. This is one of the illusory worlds. Yes, we live in a material world, but at the same time it is illusory. And then it’s possible. I’m not saying that’s the case. I just admit a doubt: what if my whole past is not really mine?
As soon as I started to doubt, I let go of all my fears, all my addictions, all my habits. Everything just fell off at once.
I don’t deny the past. But at the same time, I’m not sure if it really happened. Because of this doubt, the past ceases to affect me in this present moment, because it is no longer real. What we remember happened differently in reality. We don’t remember what really happened, because our memories are overlaid with beliefs, our retellings, other people’s stories, and so on. A huge number of experiments have been conducted, and they have shown that people don’t really remember what happened to them today under the influence of some other bright elements. They just don’t remember. You can research these experiments.
This was probably one of the strangest methods.
PS: I will briefly tell you what happens to my thoughts: for me they are like a gift that I can use. They make us different from the animals. When thoughts come, they can be interrupted halfway through if I don’t need them at the moment. For example, if I’m not ready to think about them, they break off. Here’s how it happens: the thought begins, “what if…”, and suddenly it stops. It happens naturally, especially when I focus or create distance. I can feel these thoughts, but they can suddenly stop, and I’m not even interested in what would happen next. But I can call up and use the thoughts I need. I can direct my mind and choose thoughts according to certain criteria, while developing my attention.
7 ways in brief:
- don’t make thoughts relevant
- Close attention to a thought
- Switching attention
- Expand attention in the mind
- Unfocus attention in thoughts
- The present moment
- Doubt: what if my past isn’t mine?