October 3, 2018 Ponderings
I’ve had the great realization lately that we all talk to ourselves. Unfortunately, what we usually have to say is not so nice and perhaps the worst part is that we are completely unaware. My internal dialogue tells me I’m annoying, unlovable, not worthy - actually the list of my reported transgressions goes on and on. Although we are not our thoughts, meaning we are a soul with a brain and a body, our thoughts do greatly influence our reality. First off, our thoughts create feelings in us. Since we are all one and part of God’s loving energy, every time we have a negative thought about ourselves or someone else, it actually goes against our very nature of love. Since it goes against our very nature, and who we truly are, this discordance causes us to have “negative” feelings.
The old me used to think I was controlled by my thoughts and emotions, I mean it surely felt that way. I really can’t even begin to quantify the number of times I said things I really didn’t mean because I was hurt or upset. And, I’m sure most of you can relate to that. We do it ALL the time. Usually, our negative self-talk REALLY gets triggered when we make a mistake or are hurt but it’s happening almost 24/7. Our ego tries to fix or rationalize why something happened. We say something stupid and the ego wants to go back and fix it somehow. Or worse, someone says something to us that is upsetting. Instead of communicating those thoughts and feelings to the other party in the moment, we actually just replay the scenario over and over again in our heads. Which is a form of punishment to ourselves, we put the painful situation on repeat. Or for some of us, we talk about it ad nauseum to our friends and family, as if having them agree with us will somehow make the situation right or bring some kind of resolution. All this does is bring more pain. Something that should have hurt for a few minutes turns into these wounds that we carry around our entire lives. And if you know how energy works, you know that by focusing on the situation, you are just feeding it with more energy to create this never-ending cycle.
A lot of the current self-talk I had going on in my head was just programmed and carried on from childhood. I walked around all day, every day with this record in my head on repeat of how shitty I was. And guess what? Your brain can go on and on and on and on and on…..You get the picture. So, as always, the first step is awareness. It’s estimated that we have 70,000 thoughts a day. So, ideally those thoughts would all be happy, fluffy unicorns and rainbows. Yes, I can dream. How do we change this? Although we may not be able to completely control our thoughts, meditation does allow us to slow them down and recognize them, so we can begin replacing them with healthier choices. Kind of like a new way of eating for your brain. Mediation teaches us how to just watch the thoughts go by, like clouds in the sky, not attaching or associating with them.
But the past few weeks, I’ve really been seeing and learning how we can train our brains to be more positive. I mean, if we trained them to tell us how crappy we are, surely, they can be nice too, right? So now I talk to myself all the time but this time, it’s a much nicer story line. Now, I check in with myself to see how I’m doing throughout the day. I stop to acknowledge my feelings and thoughts instead of rejecting them or judging them. Then I try to gently persuade them towards greener pastures.
Love and light y'all! Robin
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