‘Witness’ your Thoughts
Can you witness your thoughts at least twice today? Obviously you are aware of your thoughts. We are typically immersed in our thoughts, profoundly influenced by them. Hopefully, we are frequently entertained by our them. This is good! However ‘witnessing’ your thoughts is tricky. Imagine yourself sitting beside the stream of your own consciousness. Oh, There’s one. There’s another and another. Become a Botanist of Mind. Is this thought, social commentary? Is it amusing? Is it kind or unkind? It doesn’t matter for purposes of this exercise. Don’t judge it. It is what it is. It is not a crime to be you. Allowing your thoughts to be what they indeed are creates a solid platform for growth. Noting that a given thought may...
Read MoreYour Mental Wherewithal
Edit and Code Thoughts? Your mind is an information management system. It can be managed. One of the most common ‘errors’ I encountered as a therapist was confusion of thoughts with emotions. I would ask, ‘how do you feel about that?‘ Someone would reply, ‘Well, I think that…’. I might ask again, ‘how do you feel?’ and again hear something on the order of, ‘well, if you ask me…’ This reflects a lack of awareness of the distinction between thoughts and emotions. Mind stuff includes: perceptions of sensation, perception of emotion, snap judgements, recollections, opinions, conclusions drawn, etc. It is in your interest to distinguish between all of the above. Failure to make those distinctions...
Read MoreDrinking Too Much Wine? Take a ‘Buddhist Pause’
Five minutes is all it takes. You may opt for ten. At the end of the day many folks look forward to a glass of wine, then perhaps a second. Roughly 50 % of folks I’ve worked with have overcome this problem simply taking what I call a ‘Buddhist Pause’. The point of the pause is to just take note of what’s in play. What were your thoughts just a moment ago. Your thought a moment ago increased the likelihood that you would take that drink. What was the thought? The thought before that? A Dangerous Pattern Shifts as a Result of the Pause Taken and Insight Gained. Not uncommonly, with the pause, people note that the thought was something like, ‘I feel like cr…’ or, ‘that SOB!’. Those thoughts matter. Not...
Read MoreFree Won’t as Opposed to Free Will: Where the Action Is..
Visitors here at Phenomenal Mind are coming to appreciate how much that flow of inner thoughts just happens. It does just happen. Yes, we can override the free flow reading a book or directing our focus to a task but, within the nooks and crannies of those moments we think the thoughts. It’s as if we’re haunted. We’re not really, it’s just rather, that our brain’s efforts to help us are non-stop. The efforts of our brain to help us are in-formed by ALL and I mean ALL of our past and present experience, 24/7. Whew! That is a lot of information. Yep… It is and the brain organizes and prioritizes that information to produce what are seemingly knee jerk reactions to things. Have you ever said..”I can’t believe I just...
Read MorePsychic Agency
I just read a friend’s post, ‘Quit Your Bitchin’ and Get on With It!‘ What a concept, eh? Easier said than done? Well, yes and no. Forgive me for a moment as I indulge myself and spout some science: Our brains are capable of ‘mucho’ parallel processing. Therefore we can entertain multiple lines of thought. So…we can say to ourselves, “quit the bitchin’ and get on with it” and simultaneously ‘bitch!”. Sorry about that folks but it’s true. This is the age of ‘complexity theory’ (wiki that for fun). Not to worry. With discipline and repetition we can reduce the likelihood that particular lines of thought are likely to recur. That my friends is quantum theory brought to...
Read More‘In Denial’ or Useful Filtering?
Have you ever been accused of being ‘in denial?’ The good news is that ‘a la google’ we have filters! Our phenomenal self-organizing mind creates filters from day 1 or thereabouts. Do you really need to note the pattern of ceiling tiles above your head? Probably if you sell ceiling tiles, but other than that… Note: ADD is entirely about our filter system. There is no ‘quantity’ of attention that gets low. Our sensory apparatus notes all and our self organizing process determines what is worthy of note without any conscious involvement on our part. Infants over time begin to assign more value to the sound of footsteps approaching than the sound of the heating system starting up yet again. Is it self-serving? You...
Read MoreOur Psychological Immune System
Our Mind itself is capable of mustering extraordinary defenses. It’s not only OK to ‘be defensive” it’s often in our best interest. Understanding of our psychological defenses enables us to well use them. Our psychological immune system is as complex as our physical immune system and so a full understanding of it takes time and exploration. However, to begin with let’s just remove the negative from the ‘crime’ with which we may be occasionally charged, ‘being defensive’. The first question to be asked under those circumstances is ‘are we on the receiving end of an offense?’ We can point that out to our companion. If we are on the receving end of what is construed as an offense, of course our...
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