You are NOT your thoughts

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You are NOT your thoughts

Fri, 14 May 2010

Jane was on her way to school

She seemed worried about her science class

She was not sure she could control the class again today

It wasn’t part of a caretaker’s responsibilities

As you read the above paragraph what did you notice? Did you notice how you were being "updated" as you moved from one line to another? The first line is a young girl going to school, anxious about her lesson. Then, the scene changes, our "mental model" changes to from a pupil to a teacher, until it finally changes into caretaker.

Our minds make these "updating commentaries" outside our awareness, making meaning from one moment to the next, which once in our minds may create or maintain emotional reactions. Once we’ve established such "mental models" through inferences and assumptions, they are naturally and quickly followed by emotional reactions.

Consider the following scene of a couple in their home: "Would you like to have pasta or Chinese?" says one. The other replies, "Which ever"

Have you already made the assumption of who is asking and who is answering?

Now imagine the same couple in martial therapy . She recalls the event as " I asked him if he’d like me to cook some food for him and he said he didn’t care".

He remembers the event as "She asked me what I wanted, and I replied I’d have anything you cook, trying to helpful!"

It is easy to have differing interpretations, and high lights the importance of separating events from interpretation of events. Contrary information is normally ignored by our mental models, while consistent information is noticed.

The real danger is in the assumption that our thoughts are facts.

Mindfulness meditation is the simple process of keeping our focus on an anchor, and this is normally our breath as it gently flows in and out of our nostrils. Every time we discover that our focus has been hijacked by passing thought, we notice where what our thoughts are and gently yet firmly bring our focus back to the breath.

This illustrates that we are not our thoughts, and that our thoughts are merely mental events.

EXERCISES

Victim to Creator (by Dav Panesar)

Mindfulness (by Dav Panesar)