POV: you’re afraid of your own thoughts

Or maybe

you’re not afraid of the thoughts themselves, but you’re afraid of what you think they mean. Like what they could say about you as a person, whether they could be true, or what they might make you do.

Many of us were taught to be ashamed of own humanity—including our thoughts.

We were taught that our thoughts were a reflection of our soul and morality, rather than the current state of our nervous system. This internal resistance creates dissonance and dysfunction in our lives.

But what if I told you that you get to decide what your own thoughts mean? They only have as much power over you as you give them. You are the only one giving them meaning, and you can decide they mean nothing at all.

Imagine yourself sitting next to a river or stream.

You watch it flow by, carrying the plants and animals right past you. It’s as if the river would’ve done so whether you were there or not. The water really has nothing to do with you.

And the same is true for your thoughts.

Would you ever have an emotional reaction to every fish or twig you saw in the water, as if it was hurtful or offensive for them to be there? You could try and stop them from flowing by, but it would be just as messy or ridiculous as trying to stop your own thoughts.

You are not your thoughts. You are simply the observer of them. They don’t have to belong to you as much as you believe they do.

Many things say more about you than your thoughts do, anyway.

Like the way you respond to your thoughts, the things you’d rather focus on instead, and your actions and choices.

So could you release the meaning you give every single thought you have and simply let them flow by? We can’t stop our brains from thinking, but we can change the way we think. All we have to do is change the way we relate to our thoughts.

Have you ever noticed that when your body feels good, your thoughts reflect that? And when your body feels sick, uncertain, or unsafe, your thoughts reflect that, too. This is because our brains produce thoughts of the same frequency we are operating on.

When we change the state of our nervous system, the quality of our thoughts change as well.

But when we’re personally identifying with certain thoughts so strongly, we are actively preventing ourselves from developing new thought patterns. We must let go of the belief that they reflect who we are.

This is where the river can be helpful—in teaching us how to detach and observe. Notice, and release.

So whether you stay so busy you can never stop to think,

or you numb yourself to the point of emptiness, you’re giving your thoughts too much power over you. I like what Alan Watts once said, that “[thinking] is a good servant, but a bad master.”

Sometimes we are afraid of our thoughts because they are violent and cruel, and sometimes we avoid them because we fear they are right or true. Whether we are scared of having flashbacks of a traumatic event, or having to face a truth we don’t want to admit to ourselves, sometimes it feels safest to run from the reality within us.

But you can decide your own truth, rather than letting fear do it for you.

Stop running, forcing, or resisting. Conquer your thoughts by letting them go, and regain the control that your thoughts once had over you. You have probably found that trying to stop thinking about something is as senseless as trying to stop the rushing waters of a river.

You will have a lot more luck changing your mind when you give your brain direction, intention, and focus. You can decide and instruct yourself on what you would like to think on instead. And then you practice. Just like re-routing a wayward river.

The water still has to flow somewhere and somehow. And with time, you can clear the debris and decide the new paths you want to take, while releasing the routes that don’t belong to you.