Outdated Thoughts
It all started with a thought...
I realized all of a sudden that I didn't need that thought anymore. Whatever it was. It would have been useful in the moment. At some moment in the past. Doesn't matter which moment. I suspect it got me the physical first aid help I needed. It was what drove me to communicate, with difficulty, that I was injured and needed help. I was being ignored. I'd hit my head and couldn't talk, couldn't stand up. In that moment that thought was wisdom. Now, it's just outdated.
Our innate wisdom, sometimes called intuition, is extremely powerful and guides us through every situation. Even when it looks as if all is lost. We make decisions about how to go forward, about how to get through the present moment. We make these decisions very quickly and without thinking about it.
Going forward, though, after the injury healed, it became outdated. Past its stale date. It didn't need to become a rule about life in general or a contract that I made with myself. And yet I was still reacting to life based on that thought.
The brain likes to be efficient. It's kind of lazy. It doesn't want to have to re-learn everything about how to navigate our environment all the time. It makes shortcuts. This is an immensely useful feature. Except when our previous bright ideas and shortcuts start running the show and getting in the way of the current moment. We have challenges being fully present. Always navigating and managing our busy thinking going in a number of different directions. This is true for everyone no matter your particular style of brain functioning.
The feeling of an outdated thought that's become a way of life for us is tension, anxiety, fear. An outdated thought that we give more and more attention to becomes a startle reaction. When we give weight to a thought by buying into the reaction, we are giving our brain the feedback that "yes this is what I want. Do this more."
It's a neutral non-judgmental system.
"Ok, you want more reactivity, in these cases. Sure thing, boss."
Over time we get more and more successful at quick reactivity (and they get bigger and bigger). Now we have panic attacks. Then we make thoughts about the emotions and the reactivity and we get scared and judgmental of our own reactivity that we unknowingly asked for in the first place. What a mess!
Surprisingly, all it takes to go the other way back to calm is the knowledge of how our system works. Once you see that the emotional reactivity is entirely powered by an outdated no longer needed thought (and not by anything outside of you), the whole mess starts to unwind on its own. In fact, the less you "do" about it the quicker it washes away. Like a sandcastle in the tide. Because we are the "man behind the curtain" as it were, we are in charge. In knowing you don't need it (and you don't ever - nobody needs panic attacks - ever). It's never giving you information about the world around us but always giving you information about your own state of mind.
Our brain learns from us. We are the learning input. We can change it at any time.
When we slow down, mentally, we can "see" ourselves and our glitchy programming. Like a robot gone off plan. We are generally so busy, busy, busy-minded that we miss it. We're also accustomed to thinking that tension is normal, needed, and actually desirable. We then generate more of it in a misguided attempt to somehow feel better.
In all cases, an outdated thought is because it helped us get through a tough or intense situation at one time. We don't ever need to know what that was or even what the specific thought or thoughts were. We feel the feeling of these no longer needed strategies and we call them by different names. Triggers, phobias, anxieties, issues, reactivity, addiction, cravings. Our emotional response, after the fact, to these thought-created feelings is also varied; anger, fear, shame and guilt are common. We then make our response to an outdated strategy into a problem or worse yet we decide that it means something about us as a person.
All that is ever going on is an unrecognized outdated thought.
Which is the awesomest news EVER!
Humans are designed to create and dissolve thoughts in a flash as needed and then no longer needed. We do it all day long. We only notice when the system gets a bit sticky. Thought is fluid, ephemeral, not actually a real thing, and dissolves when we see it for what it is. It changes back into the formless energy that it started from. And you get a boost of energy as well.
How do you "see it for what it is"?
It's like noticing a cloud in the sky. You notice it and get on with your day. You don't do anything with it. It's made of mist. We know that it will either dissipate or float on by left to its own devices. A cloud in the sky says nothing about the sky or the quality of the sun itself. Just as thought says nothing about us as a person. You recognize thought and know that it'll pass and then get on with your day. Do nothing specific about the thought. This only creates more thinking and thought.
Literally forget it ever existed. It's a cloud. It'll pass.
The less we "do" with the clouds, the less clouds there are over time and the quicker the existing clouds dissipate.
Take it from someone who had A LOT of clouds hanging over her head and now there is mostly wide-open blue skies.
With love,
Sara Joy
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