Serenity wrote:
Kyrin Wyldstar wrote:
Kyrin Wyldstar wrote: Ok JLspinner and Zenchi, challenge accepted!
And now Challenge Answered.
https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/forum/senan/114579-kyrin-s-apprentice-journal?start=20#319845
How very useless to anyone who is not apprentice and up ...
Bad day Serenity? Since you asked so nicely I will post it here. :blink:
Eckart Tolle puts forth the idea that all pain arises from resistance to things you can’t change. This stems from spending too much time thinking about the past or the future and dwelling on those thoughts which cause regret and anxiety. However you can free yourself from this pain by constantly observing your mind and not judging your thoughts. This entails constantly asking yourself, “What will my next thought be”? This basically freezes your system into a “current state” through the process of constant observation. By doing this you can interrupt your mind, giving you time to separate from it and simply observe those thoughts instead of judging them. This allows us to notice those thoughts and accept they are there but not give in to them.
I don’t think just ignoring or dismissing these thoughts does anything to relieve pain. All it does is delay the inevitable and gives us an excuse to ignore our responsibilities and pretend our feelings are not real. This is because pain actually arises not only from things we can’t change but also the thoughts themselves. Thoughts directly affect feelings and our thoughts are something we CAN change. This is done by examining our thoughts and challenging them. First we need to identify if the thought is a fact or an opinion. If it is a fact, it very well could cause pain and there is nothing you can do about it. We need to face that and deal with it in an appropriate manner.
For example, the thought, “I was raped” is a fact that cannot be changed and it will cause pain. However the thought, “I should not have dressed like I did” or “It was my fault because I was out alone” are both opinions and can also cause us pain. However they are also forms of cognitive distortion because they are unhelpful thinking styles. The first thought is using “should” statements that produces self-guilt. And the second is blaming yourself for something not your fault. These thoughts can be examined, challenged and modified. This isn't easy and it’s not about just ‘thinking nice thoughts' or 'looking for the silver lining'. It’s a process of teaching ourselves to think in a balanced way: accepting what is truly negative whether it be fact or opinion, but when it comes to opinion thoughts, not making the mistake of thinking that is the whole story.
Tolle also puts forth the idea that regret and anxiety are the primary sources of pain but they are useless because we can only really live in “the now” or the present moment. He says we think a lot about the future and the past, but can live only in the present and have therefore no means to change many things from the past or the future that we’re unhappy about. This is categorically false. While it is true that we live in the present moment how we act in that moment is informed by our experience of the past and our evaluation of the future. Without these things our actions in the present become useless. This is evidenced by Tolles wandering around on park benches for years. He lost the capability to be an effective interactor in his environment by disconnecting himself from the future and the past. He fell into a state of complete disassociation. Instead of just ignoring these things we need to integrate them. Correcting past mistakes if possible or at a minimum being better in the present by learning from them and also preparing for the future instead of just letting it happen. Preparation is the key to personal power.
Our regret and our anxiety are not something to suppress or avoid. In fact both of these things are just as necessary for us as humans as the rest of our emotions. Regret informs us of behaviors that are incorrect or detrimental or hurtful. This can be when relating to others or when evaluating self-inflicted pain in our own thoughts about ourselves. By having a healthy relationship with regret we inform our present in such a way as to improve behavior in the moment and be better people, more informed people and more honest in our opinions of ourselves. Anxiety works in a similar fashion. It is through anxiety that we practice for future actions. A healthy relationship with anxiety tells us to study for a test, or prepare for a job interview. It keeps us cautious in potentially dangerous situations and actually relieves stress by enacting the worst scenarios in dreams. The dream world is a safe environment where we can play out our worst fears in safety to judge behavior and actually relieve fear by preparing ourselves through rehearsal.
Instead of suppressing these things we need to embrace them and challenge them. There are three helpful questions we can ask ourselves when challenging our thoughts in this way. The first question is “is this a fact or an opinion”? If it is a fact we will have to deal with that in whatever manner it deserves. This might include grieving etc. If the thought is an opinion the second question is “Does my thought match any of the typical unhelpful thinking styles”? If it does that we need to challenge that thought and identify why it is a cognitive bias and then do our best to correct that. The third question entails one process of correction by asking ourselves “If a friend told me they were thinking this way, what would I say to them?”
Instead of trying to separate ourselves from our thoughts we need to better embrace our thoughts. Integrate them more fully into our lives. Our goal in this should not be in “not judging” our thoughts but “better judging” our thoughts so that we may remove cognitive biases from them. These biases only lead to distorted and subjective decision-making, skewed emotion, and irrational actions in our lives and irrational thoughts about ourselves. In order to remove these things from our lives we need to recognize unhelpful thinking styles and eliminate them. We need to engage with our thoughts and overcome these biases. This allows us to change our feelings and emotions to become powerfully effective and rational interactors in our environment by utilizing every tool at our disposal including the past, the present and the future as well as our regret and our anxiety.
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