We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we remake the world – Budhha.
Above statement about thoughts is as true as Gravity at Earth. What we are today is because of how we thought about us in past. Our predominant thoughts create our beliefs that create our actions and actions create our version of reality and our personality. Why is it so important to Manage our thoughts? A human mind gets nearly sixty thousand thoughts in a day. One will go crazy managing them.
Managing our thoughts is essential to keep ourselves on purpose in life and to live with a higher level of awareness or existence. A clear mind doesn’t only sets a clear perspective in life but also gives us access to the higher levels of creativity and focus.
A thought by itself contains no power. It is the meaning we attach to it basis our perspectives that have been formed by our past perceptions about life. The longer we attach ourselves to a thought, the longer it impacts us and our mind. There is nothing called as future that exists today nor the past that exists today. The only reality is the moment we are living right now. Managing our thoughts allow us to be in this moment and live with purpose and clarity.
Anybody will go crazy in the attempt to manage thoughts if he/she starts monitoring each thought that comes in the mind. Rather no one can do this. Let’s do a very simple experiment here. For next 3 minutes start speaking out any thought that comes in your mind. Just speak out loud to your self. Don’t keep it inside. Trust me ! you will not be able to do that even for a single minute, because the frequency at which thoughts generate is very high than at what you speak.
So how do we manage thoughts?
I see two ways of doing it that works for me
Firstly by managing your feelings. Thoughts always generate a kind of feeling in us, which can be happy, sad, anger, anxiety etc. So be aware of how you feel at the moment. If you feel negative about a thought or emotion then the key is to immediately disconnect with it. Remember I mentioned above that thoughts don’t have power in them. It is just the way we attach meaning and ourselves with it. Hence the moment I disassociate myself with the negative feeling with the self-talk like “its just a thought, its not me”. It immediately drops the level of negativity associated with it.
Secondly I classify my thoughts as Good thoughts, Wasteful thoughts, Fear thought, Anger thought etc. The benefit of classifying and eventually labelling the thoughts as they arise is that it immediately detaches you from it and you become the witness of your own thoughts and hence they lose their intensity. For example – if I have to make a presentation among senior members and I’m feeling nervous about it. I immediate send a counter thought to my mind, saying to myself that it’s a nervous thought, its not me in real. It immediately reduces the intensity and leaves me with better clarity for the moment.
Managing your thought is like consciously choosing your future.
Sending you love, laughter and joy…… Parth sharma