Get a Life Guide

The Importance of Thinking

Thinking about the past and the future is an important part of being human. If we don’t look to the past, we cannot learn from our mistakes and we cannot gain a sense of who we are as a person and where we have come from…this experience forms and shapes our identity.

Likewise, thinking about the future can help us plan for tomorrow, prepare for the unexpected and guide our life towards a better and happier life.

Both ‘practises’ are a part of our ‘dualistic’ thinking – ie, backward, forward. If you think of a continuum line, then both ’spheres’ of thought lie at opposite ends, with the ‘present’ sitting square in the middle. Of course, the present is not a static concept, as it is constantly moving.

Understanding Thought

Understanding ‘thought’ is a very complicated business and the subject of many philosophical, psychological, and religious discussions, debates, research and publications. There are no easy ‘answers’, and one must study, learn, practise and ultimately decide how they want to ‘think’ about life and their place within it.

Our thinking is a powerful ‘tool’ that can assist us in choosing – or creating – the type of life and lifestyle we want. As such, this ‘tool’ is shaped by our culture, our experience, our gender, age, political views, religion, atheism, agnosticism, family values, education etc. However, despite the incredible power of this tool, the same tool can undermine our health and well-being, justify mass killing and murder, talk us into extinguishing ourselves, lock us in the past, freeze us from moving forward into newer ways of living, and in a nutshell, become our master…welcome to the insidious nature of ‘thought’.

Thoughts are so powerful, that as we project a ‘fantasy’ thought into our consciousness, our body can react accordingly depending upon the degree and/or intensity of emotional content. A trauma experienced as a child, can still have the power of affecting our present, depending upon our current emotional state and whether we have ‘put that experience to rest’. This is why it’s important for victims of crime, or other forms of trauma, to ‘work through’ these unfortunate events, so as to ensure there is no unfinished business. Similarly, grief and loss can take many years to work through.

The Illusion of Thought and Uncontrollable Laughter

If you understand the basic core of thought and know that whatever we project is an illusion, then you would ‘think’ it would be simple to just tell ourselves or someone lost in the past or future, that we or they are reacting to something that is not real and therefore should just ‘get over it’. However, it’s never as simple as this as each person’s understanding is developmental and pain and suffering – like any emotional state – has a ‘duration’ before an end is arrived at. Once created, an emotional state can be all encompassing and must be experienced at the body level before an ‘outcome’ is reached. Think of laughter, and how it becomes an uncontrollable emotional urge at times, whereby the person experiencing this can’t help themselves and can only give in to it. Of course, most of us would not mind this kind of abandonment and would usually delight is such an experience.

In learning how not to dwell in past events or future worries, one must first become aware of the illusion of thought and that that is what they are currently practising. If you have learned all you can from the past experience, or you have prepared thoroughly enough for the future, then one must place a boundary around this thinking topic. This imaginary boundary can take on many different shapes or forms – eg a rope, or energy, or wall etc – that reminds us that this is a no-go zone and to enter such, would upset the fragile here-and-now focus and of course our well-being. This should be practised nightly and in the morning and/or whenever we become aware that we are thinking about this particular topic.

Draw a Line in the Sand of Sex

Our society is seeped in sexual imagery and most forms of media publicize varying aspects of this. Pornography can be highly addictive and alluring and the fantasy involved is very powerful. The difference between healthy fantasizing and leacherious perversion can be an unclear or vague boundary between the real and unreal.

So it is vital that in improving ourselves, we work at understanding our thinking, work through our issues, become aware of our fantasies, actively delineate areas of our fantasies – ie, ‘draw a line in the sand’ – and stay present.

All the best

Alan

PS:

I would like to recommend a guide I have recently uploaded to Niche E Library. Called ‘Get a Life’, this guide presents a definitive road map to a better life for anyone. It covers:

• Determining your level of readiness for positive change

• Understanding and setting goals

• Making progress with your personality instead of working against it

• The “extras” you can do to help accelerate your self-improvement journey

• The importance of determination and how to develop it

• Employment-related considerations

• The physical aspects of personal growth

The spiritual dimension of building a better life

More info: see link below