"What did I just tell myself?" has been working like a charm. Based on emotions coming up, I'm more able to monitor my own thought processes, and quicker with this simple self-query.
I knew that I had a lot of negative stuff rolling around in there, but I'm frankly shocked and surprised at how often my mom's and her mother's thoughts creep into my own head; grandmother was obsessed with death, homelessness, injury, poverty and starvation as normal consequences of just about everything. My mom is a little better, but is getting worse over time. Growing up with that echoing down the family tree has clearly had repercussions in my own thoughts: I find my own thoughts turning toward the self-denigrating variety, such as "oh, well that cute man wouldn't like a guy like me, anyway", or "I could never do that (whatever so-and-so is doing that's fabulous)".
Bullshit, I know. But when it's just below the level of consciousness, it's not always easy to catch those nattering nabobs of negativity. Unless I catch how it makes me feel, then ask the magic question.
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3 comments:
Bullshit, yeah. But every head is full of it until a bit of inquiry comes along, like your question "What did I just tell myself?" (I'll have to try that out.) I've studied & used "The Work" that Byron Katie details in "Loving What Is" & found it helpful... to the point that things that seemed life-or-death-serious turned into something I laughed at. I've witnessed her do The Work with some seriously storified people with amazing results. It comes back to Eckhart Tolle's "Watching the thinker" too... that's when I first became aware of the shocking amount of negativity I was unconsciously carrying.
"Everything that is brought into the light, becomes light."
Keep on making light of things!
OneTree
you have caught onto a very useful technique; pausing and saying OK know who is talking here? Once the complex is identified you can call it out, unplug from it, or better yet, push a pie in its puss.
Yes, I also read and found some helpful ideas in Loving What Is that onetree mentioned. I think we are so programmed to think negatively that it will take retraining to stop it so we might think about what we are feeling/thinking/doing.
seems to be a constant vigil to keep ourselves positive.
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