2. Thought Reimagined
EPISODE DESCRIPTION: What if we had a different relationship to thought? A relationship of perspective that allows us to decide if a thought will cause suffering or joy. Well, we do. Join me today and possibly begin to have a new understanding of (and relationship to) thought.
Episode theme song credits: Free Spirit by Yotam Ben Horin
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, welcome to Day Two of MIND CHALK.
So, today I'm going to talk about what inspired this podcast—thought. So let's get right into it.
There are a lot of different sayings about thought. "Thoughts become things."— Mike Dooley.
Napoleon Hill and other OG thought-leaders have built empires on the relevance of thought and how it can shape lives.
I embrace the reality that thought is free-flowing, and we get to determine what it means to us.
What's the origin, you ask?
Well, it comes from a Creative Source or from a former experience in our life. From seemingly out of nowhere. From our subconscious into our consciousness. From a dream. Or are our dreams just another canvas upon which thought plays and creates?
See, it doesn't really matter in the end. It's just floating around and pings in and out of our lives, our minds.
You can find accounts where people have said that creative thought has come to them. They didn't act on it, and then it came to life by someone else where they took it and actually did something with it by manifesting a play or a movie or a book, or some form of expression.
Why did that person have the same idea? Why did that particular thought come to that person as well? Are our thoughts just sojourners wandering the world and dancing toward us, then onto someone else if we don't dance with them? Who knows? It doesn't matter how we frame thought other than knowing that it, in and of itself, is not real. It's not something that we have to land.
The important realization for me is that thought can be empowering, or thought can be destructive—and we decide that. An example of destructive thoughts, of course, are numerous, just as examples of empowering thoughts are abundant.
Destructive thoughts are things like, “I'm not worthy of love.” Or, “Oh my God, that political party is going to ruin my life.” somehow, we land on these thoughts, and they can cause suffering.
It isn't to say there might not be truth in the thoughts we have, but the thought itself is neither destructive nor empowering until we name it one or the other.
A thought can be devastating because we take it down the rabbit hole of the next thought and then the next thought, and then the next thought that moves in and out of the next thought and then goes onto the next thought. It becomes this domino effect.
Thoughts build on thoughts unless we intervene and see them for what they are.
If we could get to the point where we could recognize that a thought doesn't necessarily mean something is true—it’s just a thought—we could save ourselves so much struggle.
We have a lot of people buying into a lot of their own thoughts and into the collective thoughts of others. Yeah, that's the really scary part. They’re not even our own thoughts We’re buying into things other people are saying to us, or other people are telling us are true. Or other people's thoughts that they're projecting onto us.
We could save ourselves a lot of low states of mind if we could recognize that just because we have a thought doesn't make it a truth.
And by the way, state of mind is an important thing here because when we're in a low state of mind, most thoughts are going to feel heavily weighted. They're going to feel negative and, a lot of times, alarming.
When we're in an elevated state of mind, when we see the reality from which we exist as a more positive place, life can feel joyful and fulfilling.
Uh, which of those two would you rather be in?
As my cross country coach, Tom Bates, taught me when I was in high school—a man who, in the early eighties, was definitely ahead of his time in coaching with sports psychology and envisioning your performance. Though, I don't think he would've called it sports psychology back then.
He reminded us young runners that when we recognize our own ability to have control over one thing, our state of mind, we can work miracles in our performance, our productivity, and in manifesting our dreams.
Now, how empowering was that for getting us over the finish line?
He would simplify it to be tackling the hill we affectionately called “The Monster” at Blue Valley Park. Still, the same principle works for life and our experience of life when we can not only envision or imagine, which is just extrapolated thought, but we can stand outside of thought to see it for what it is. Just thought, then we can be subjective and not so consumed that our thoughts are.
We can see, thought, and say, “Aaa, that's just a thought.” Or, “Wow, I'm really buying into this thought.”
Seeing thought for what it becomes like any other moment of choice. You know, that God-given right, we have a choice. Freedom of will, freedom to see things as they are for us.
We get to say, “I'm landing on this thought, and I'm going to create a course to help empower people,” or I'm letting this thought go. It doesn't serve me anymore to think that I should remain silent here.”
Or, you know—I’m just making up some thoughts to help you see that we don't have to land and stay stuck on a fleeting, not really real thing, like a thought that enters our mind.
Why give thought so much power? Seriously, think about that. Why do we give thought so much power?
Again, giving it power when it empowers us is one thing, but giving it power when it's destructive or causes us low states of mind or causes us to go into an emotionally low state of mind—that doesn't make any sense. Why do we do that to something that isn't really supposed to land as real?
So I want everyone to play with this. To recognize thought for what it is. If we could start to understand this—just because something pops into our mind doesn't mean it's real. It doesn't mean we have to heed its presence and try to cogitate and understand what it's trying to tell us because, a lot of times, we kind of get that wrong.
Or if it's a thought you like, do with it what you want. Let it empower you. Move forward in that direction and write the next best screenplay, or move forward in the direction of that thought and build the next best business model for you. Move in that direction and help save people that are homeless and hungry.
That's where that freedom of choice and our free will, whatever you want to call it, have the same underlying principle relative to thought.
Thoughts don't have to land. Thoughts don't have to become something.
Use the ember effect. Ah, this is a good one—the ember effect. So imagine an ember popping out of a fire, and it catches onto your clothing.
If you leave it there, it'll burn your clothing and consequently you.
Or you can flick it off; then, it doesn't do any damage. Even if it's a good thought, you can direct the fire of that ember and let it burn like an inferno and become something magical and wonderful in your life. [I wouldn't let it burn on your clothing necessarily. That would be quite devastating.]
Or it can burn like an inferno and be something devastating as well, like the fire itself. But we have a choice.
Do you see the difference?
The ember is the thought. It comes in. You can do it at what you want; You can ping it into another area and create an inferno of something magical and wonderful.
Or you can flick it off because you don't want it to burn your clothes and skin.
Ultimately, thoughts mean nothing until we make them mean something.
Just think about that.
I'll see you tomorrow.
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The podcast is hosted, produced, and edited by Jenée Arthur.
Cover art by Jenée Arthur
The songs used in the individual episodes have been licensed for use.