Sad for No Reason ebookI am not my thoughts
Long before I started this Living on Purpose blog, I had an internal mantra: “I am not my thoughts.” I knew in a conceptual way that thoughts were things and they were not the same as ME. For instance, I don’t have to believe I am a bad person if I notice a “bad” thought float through my brain. I don’t have to believe my thoughts. Most of them are not even my own, anyway, if you buy the concept that the brain is like a radio thus making thoughts like stations.
This was only the groundwork, or a foundation, for some more “unlearning” to take place. As we grow up, we learn the types of behaviors that we can do to get us what we want. Then when we realize these behaviors don’t serve us anymore, we have to drop them or stay stuck. I like to think that I’m in the middle of “unlearning” how to behave.
Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is, recently said in a teleconference interview: “Smoking quit me, overeating quit me.” Why? Because she faced her own truth and questioned her own thoughts. She looked long and hard at her own beliefs and realized that it’s optional to believe debilitating thoughts about yourself or others. Once chronically depressed, she now describes her life as “heaven.” She has done the work of self introspection and now teaches others how to do the same so they can experience freedom from toxic thoughts and beliefs, too.
Last year I interviewed Carol Skolnick about her work as a facilitator of The Work of Byron Katie. If this topic interests you, I invite you to read the interview here:
Interview with a facilitator of The Work
Here is the main Byron Katie web site, full of video interviews of people going through the self introspection process:
On this resources page, find the sidebar that says “downloads” and print the worksheets there. Have several “Judge Your Neighbor” worksheets available and the next time you’re mad or irritable or depressed, fill it out and do The Work for yourself!
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March 19th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
I love Byron Katie and her wisdom. We are NOT our thoughts. We are that which exists prior to the first thought and will exist after our last thought. We’re betwixt and between. Facing our own truth…the greatest gift we can give ourselves. Thanks for this, Jessica.
March 19th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
You put it so elegantly, Kathy. Thanks. I agree that the greatest gift I could give myself is the gift of facing my truth. It’s the gift that keeps on giving because future generations in my family will benefit from me doing my own Work. It’s the greatest gift I could give my own children because I could actually break the family chain of dysfunction (if I keep at it).
March 27th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Yes, it is so important to watch thoughts, like a crawl on a screen, realizing that as the only thinker in our minds, it is up to us to be mind~full, and to change our own thinking and programming along the way. Beautiful share! thanks, Jessica!
March 27th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
I agree, and thanks for your comment Antonia. I like the phrase about watching our thoughts like they are crawling across a screen.