I’m sure most of us all received the survey maybe 6 months ago asking “Do you control your own thoughts?”
Obviously I chose “No” I do not control my own thoughts.
Since then the question has been on my mind. “Where do our thoughts actually come from?”
For instance, when we all of sudden get a great new idea from out of nowhere.
Another instance, when you have a conversation with yourself inside your head, who is the voice that answers your questions?
In: 5
Thoughts are related to patterns of neurons firing. We understand some of the basics about how these patterns of neurons firing translate to thoughts we can hear and see in our mind’s eye, but there’s a lot that’s not yet understood. This means unfortunately that a lot of the information that’s out there right now is philosophical or pseudo-scientific (and flat-out wrong).
One thing we do understand somewhat is how we can “hear” and “see” thoughts. Your brain has big parts that are just responsible for taking sensory inputs (sights, sounds) and converting them to signals that express all the relevant information your brain needs to decide how to feel about them and what to do, and then putting them on pathways to the emotional and decision-making parts of the brain. When you have a thought you can see or hear, what’s happening is that the imaginative parts of your brain are “hijacking” these pathways with signals they’ve created to mimic the sights and sounds they’re imagining. Then your brain interprets them in much the same way it would a “real” signal from your senses.
What thoughts do you have control over? Where do thoughts come from? Where do they go? Why do intrusive thoughts have so much power? Is it possible to make them less powerful? You can actually discover the answers for yourself. All you have to do is sit quietly and observe your thoughts. This is challenging and takes lots of practice. First you need to set up the laboratory: you can make the best observations when you’ve set up a relatively clean and peaceful working environment. This goes for your physical environment (where you’re choosing to sit quietly) and your mental state (relaxed, peaceful, forgiving, open). Sitting peacefully for a few minutes and observing your breath going in and out is the best way to set up your lab.
The biggest challenge you’ll face first is big, emotional, intrusive thoughts that sweep you up, derail your observations, and make you stop what you’re doing: “I’m so stupid”, “I can’t believe I did XXX”, “I’m never going to be able to do this”. But these big thoughts are also useful observations. When you get one, even if it derails you, look at it afterwards and reflect on how it changed your emotional and mental state. Where did it come from? Did you feel thrown off balance? What happened to your mental eye that had been focused on your breathing? What happened to your perceptions of yourself and your surroundings? You’ll find that with enough practice, not only will your understanding of these intrusive thoughts grow, but their power and their ability to “swamp” or “capsize” your emotional state will lessen. This will carry over beyond your sitting-quietly-and-observing practice into your everyday life.
This process might take weeks or months of daily practice, but eventually you’ll find you’re able to sit quietly in peace and equanimity, observing your thoughts without emotion or judgement. You’ll be able to deal with big emotional intrusive thoughts, as well as smaller ones (“My back aches a bit”, “This is boring”, “I have too much to do today”) just by observing them arise and observing them fall away. You’ll gradually be able to understand the working of your mind on an even subtler level, observing thoughts that don’t result in mental words or pictures. Eventually you’ll even be able to understand more about the part of your mind that’s doing the observing, and take your understanding beyond the observation and critical inquiry that got you this far.
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