Understanding the Power of NowYou Are Not Your Thoughtsby Laura Interval
Do you understand that statement? Read it again… “YOU are not your THOUGHTS”! These 5 words changed my life. When I finally “got” that concept… I became a different person. Or rather I began to have a new and different understanding of myself and what was going on inside of here! It is possible to “watch” your own thoughts. You can watch them on the inside, like you watch TV or a film. You can sit back, tune in and “observe” what you’re thinking. Try it. Right now. Just stop reading for a second and “watch” what you’re thinking. How does that make you feel? Are you surprised by what you “saw”? Weird, huh, to put your consciousness on what you’re thinking? But, when you do this, you become aware of your own presence. And it’s not your thoughts. Your thoughts are not what make up YOU! Once you realize that you are separate from your thoughts, you can begin to understand the affect they have on you, your moods and your actions . . . and how to control them. Eckhart Tolle is the master of this concept. And I have to tell you, I might not be here to write on this site, if it weren’t for his book the “The Power of Now”. I’m not here to teach you his concepts. But, I want to share how this basic realization helped me.
About a year ago, I was in a horrible place. I was leaving a relationship, I was leaving my home, I was leaving everything I knew to be “my life”. I was feeling mentally and physically drained and my outlook was …well… dark. I was frustrated, sad and just basically pissed off. Even though I knew I was doing the right thing, I couldn’t find the “light”. After what felt like a year long month of this blackness, the grips of the downward spiral began to tighten. It felt like a monster truck had slammed into my body and I had no energy and no desire to do anything about it. I began to dread anything to do with my beloved career and anything “happy” began to feel sinister. I felt my usual optimistic sheen go rusty and I began to feel sarcastic and apathetic. I didn’t have an awareness of what was happening… all I had was an overall feeling of depression. Now, I’m all for a little “me” time when things are rough. I believe in time to grieve, time to sulk and time to veg out with some chocolate for a while. But, when it’s time to rejoin the living… it’s time to rejoin the living. And after a few months, a little voice from somewhere inside told me I’d better start trying to resurface. Ok, maybe it was my mom…. But, in any case, it was definitely time to come back and deal. As I often do in blurry times, I reached for a book from my self help collection. I have to admit, I am a “bible dipper” when it comes to therapy books. I tend not to read them cover to cover… but, begin reading at a chapter that I choose by randomly opening the pages. I flipped open “The Power of Now” and began to read about becoming a “watcher of my thoughts”. And I did what he asked me to do. I just sat…for hours and watched my thoughts. I didn’t judge them or try to figure them out. I just kept listening to my thoughts of dread, my thoughts of anger, my thoughts of guilt. And as I watched them from a separate space, they began to lose power. They began to seem less important. They no longer had to do with “me”. It was such a bizarre feeling. I began to feel like there were two of me; my presence and then, something that my brain was just “making up”.
Mr. Tolle explains:“So when you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence - your deeper self - behind or underneath the thought, as it were. The thought then loses its power over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energizing the mind through identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking.”
Now, he’s not talking about meditation or lack of consciousness. It’s almost a hyper consciousness when you practice it. You will find a strong sense of presence. That feeling of confusion and anxiety will calm. It is almost impossible to sit in regret or anger if you watch your thoughts. It’s “freeing yourself from your mind” that releases you. That night my thoughts were full of “how could it all go so wrong?” and “you should have tried harder”… “how can you succeed now?” and “what are you going to do?” As I watched them come in and out, they gradually began to fade. They just became old, in the past and irrelevant to the moment I was experiencing. I remember falling asleep with a feeling of exhaustion. But, the peace I had found made me smile. The next morning, I woke up and immediately watched my thoughts. There they were again . . . out of habit now. The old dread, the guilt, with a little “poor me” thrown in. This time I actually found humor in watching them. It was ironic that my brain was just sort of trained to think this now… and I had allowed it. I began to understand how thinking these thoughts were keeping me down and locked in the past. Right now, in my room, the sun was out… there was no present conflict … and I was a living, breathing human being. I began to consciously change those thoughts… and my black cloud began to lift. It is incredibly powerful to just “be”. Tolle says, “When you are present, you access your inner knowing and you will sense what is true and what was added on or distorted.” If you allow your thoughts to worry about something in the past, you are holding on to old perceptions. If you allow your thoughts to worry about the future, you are depending on predictions, not reality. The only reality we have is NOW! So, the next time you are feeling unhappy, or worried, or depressed, take a minute and “watch your thoughts”. See if you can separate yourself from them. Identify which ones are repeating and causing your mood or undesired actions. Which ones are you allowing your mind to distort? Stay in the present moment, and see if they still have power. Don’t let your mind go to the past, don’t let your mind go to the future. You will feel a peace that comes with understanding you . . . all of you.
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“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
To read Eckhart Tolle's book:
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