Thinking

If you have any desire for freedom, for expansion and growth, for success of some kind, or to change and improve your circumstance you have to start with your thinking. If you have attempted to act on any desires only to find resistance or “failure” in the external world, you have to go back to your thinking.

If you are meeting rejection, friction, or disappointment in your endeavors—you guessed it—you have to go back to your thinking.

It all starts with your thoughts.

Our emotions and feelings arise in reaction to our thoughts. Our actions come through our emotions. Whatever you are feeling: sad, anger, peace—your actions will manifest, be expressed, through that emotion. Of course, humans are undoubtedly complex and we aren’t always just feeling one emotion or reacting to one thought. We can feel excited for the opportunity to give a presentation and fear that we’re going to fail or look silly somehow.

And that’s why you have you get cozy with your thoughts. To recognize why you're excited and scared by identifying the thoughts that trigger the emotions. Sometimes, having a thought that triggers fear is good, as it pushes us to act towards self-preservation—like when a tiger is stalking us. When dealing with work, or friends, or committing to our dreams and aspirations, fear isn't as helpful. Indeed, it can really hinder us.

Let's say, you’re driving along and someone cuts you off. If your ego is running your thoughts you’ll quickly be offended. “How dare they!” “That prick cut ME off!” Your thoughts arising from ego—or as I like to call it, your petty self—takes everything as personal: "That guys got a vendetta for me!" These thoughts result in you believing you have been disrespected and even threatened. From these thoughts, emotional reaction.

While being cut off can be dangerous, more often than not, you react accordingly, applying the brakes and returning to safety. But, the ego has also been threatened and disrespected, thus it needs to react accordingly to “protect” itself.

Anger is very protective. How can you express this emotion in action? Lay on your horn. Tailgate them. Flip em the bird! Ah, the ego feels some satisfaction. In reality none of those actions made you, or anyone else, any safer.

To stop this chain reaction you have to start at the root, which is your thoughts. You have to wrestle your thinking away from your ego—or petty self—and start thinking from your true self. This is deeply tricky.

It’s easy for your petty self to take over even when you’ve recognized and witnessed yourself having a petty, fearful thought. Your petty self can berate yourself over having the initial petty thought or even an emotional reaction to it. "Oh stupid me!" "Why did I think/do that!"

The petty self can feel shame for simply having an emotion! Yet, emotions are essential communication from our body. Emotions are data points, thus no emotion is bad, it's our reaction to them—do we react rather than respond? Do we suppress rather than allow? This is why self-love is so necessary. Unconditional love. Love and acceptance and space for all the mistakes and pettiness.

The petty self, by lamenting and judging and ridiculing, is resisting. And, resistance is persistence! This layering or doubling up of negative reactions by the petty self just reinforces the ego. It creates an emotional charge around the behavior or pattern and imprints it into the subconscious mind so you go on repeating it.

"Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender." —Eckhart Tolle

And, look, there's no judgment in this article. This is very much advice for myself, which I just happen to be sharing. Next time you—or myself—does something petty and you catch it, just relax: "Ah so." Don't judge. Allow. Recognize the emotion that triggered the (re)action, then the thought that triggered the emotion. By recognizing the chain, you can understand. Through understanding you can have compassion. Through compassion you create space for growth, evolution and the opportunity to change self-defeating behavior without judgment. From here, you can think and act in entirely new and supportive ways. From here, you can actually liberate and take control of your life.

I have to admit: this is a lesson I am currently working through—maybe I always will be. I've recognized a deep pattern of thought, adopted in childhood, that causes strong emotional reaction any time I spend money on anything more expensive than groceries. When I don't recognize the thought and then emotion, I often react rather irrationally: On the reactive side I try to plow through, buying the expensive thing even if it's not quite right or what I want/need. I may opt for the $1300 version instead of the $1500 even if the $1300 is not actually what I want. On the suppressive side, I may deny buying something even when financially comfortable to do so and for things I need.

Like everything, it's a practice. I've recognized the pattern in myself and can now catch myself more easily. Over time, a new pattern can take it's place... Or, so I hope. I'll report back in a year or something. If you've got any hot tips, let me know!