I think this is a great post.
Wait, I don’t believe that.
Wait, I don’t believe that I don’t believe that.
Wait. I don’t think I feel as though I believe I feel that I think I disbelieve this.
Wait…
Dear Ido,
I keep getting this message, from many sources, which makes me trust it.
I’m wondering if you’ve ever read any Byron Katie?
This is her one message. Wrapped up in 4 questions:
Is it True? (my thought)
Can I absolutely know it’s true?
How do I react when I believe that thought?
Who would I be without that thought?
And then you can turn your statement around., and often times, the turnaround is more true.
Thanks for this post, and reminding me to keep questioning my thoughts.
🙂
Lisa
Hey Ido,
Eckhart Tolle has written beautifully about the need to stop identifying our selves with our minds/thoughts in order to achieve enlightenment/peace. The Power of Now.
Thanks Ido, it’s a pleasure you stopped by my blog, It’s been wonderful exploring yours!
Our thoughts can be our worst enemy sometimes. They can also save us…if we control them…or only pay attention to the right ones. 🙂
xx
Great blog, Ido. This reminds me of the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know.” Your thoughts, although intangible, are more concrete than the physical in many cases. Let those thoughts go! It takes time but you get better.
Turning off the Internal Dialogue is the only way I know of to control the thoughts that we have. Once achieved it opens you up to a different Reality. You see things without the description, the way they really are, energy! However turning off the Internal Dialogue is not an easy task. Most people don’t realize that they can stop this chatter inside their heads but It can be done.
Try this the next time you go for a walk. Look at the horizon and try to see the full view from the side of your head forewords with out focusing on any object in your vision. Now hold your pinky fingers on your hands and thumbs together something like in yoga. Start walking! Try not to break the vision (It’s kinda like a stare) and listen to everything as you walk. It will take some practice, and patients but the Internal Dialogue will slowly diminish and things will start to change before your every eyes. This is when you know you are doing it right. Keep practicing, you will be amazed. No more chatter. True perception!
Hi Ido, thanks for stopping by my page The Brainwash Project! I’ve had a look around your blog and I really like what I’m reading. Would you be interested in potentially writing something about thoughts and the mind for the first edition of Brainwash Magazine? You can check it out here: http://www.pozible.com/index.php/archive/index/7913/description/0/0 or email me: thebrainwashproject@gmail.com.
The mag is targeted at teenagers and is about breaking down stereotypes and looking at the world from a different perspective – essentially it encourages critical, independent thought. Anyway, I’ll leave the idea with you and hope I hear back! (If anyone else reads this and would like to be involved, I’m currently looking for submissions!)
Cheers,
Jessica
This is so true. I often have to stop and ask myself, “Why am I thinking this and feeling this way about myself?” You’re right. Thoughts are fleeting and easily provoked by others. But knowing that is the best way to not let them control you.
Thanks for a great post, Ido. My thoughts have run the show for so long now that they don’t like the suggestion that they might not BE me. I have a fight on my hands – but I’m up for it!!
I think you’re right about this and thoughts enter our head from all over, we file stuff when we’re not focused on it, even pick up on other conversations that may not be our own. There is an influx of stimulus coming at us every day so a wave of thoughts. So you’re right, we don’t have to take everything as an indicator of who I am. If you watched 5 horror films in a week and have a flash of blood pouring down a face – it doesn’t now mean “I’m violent!” This probably works with food, drugs, alot of things (even though that may take more practice). Anyway, I believe the mind can be turned around. The matrix wasn’t just a movie to me. Haha.
It can definately turned around, there’s a great book about it called “The brain that changes itself” – totally scientific, but written in a very simple way so that everyone can understand.
In defense of thoughts and thinking, let me say this…
That is an interesting thought. Do you believe it? Why should you believe that one? Why should I believe the garbled version of it that is now in my head? Your description may well apply to some of our thoughts, or even most of our thoughts, but just possibly perhaps not all of them. If all of our thoughts were inherently untrustworthy, why would I hear the ring of truth in so many of yours? Why should anyone bother to share them? Does our search for truth simply come down to disbelief in everything we can imagine?
And what is the alternative? What should we trust instead of our thoughts? Our emotions? Our intuition? Epiphanies that arrive in profound, ecstatic flashes of insight and enlightenment? They are all thoughts as well.
I agree that we are much more than our thoughts. But I think our thoughts are a fundamental part of who we are. Our thoughts are a myriad of voices of various sources all competing for time in our consciousness. While we cannot completely control our thoughts, personal growth or enlightenment or spiritual progress, whatever we may call it, is a process of improving our thoughts, not dismissing them. It involves the development of discernment, of judgement, indeed of wisdom. As we improve our thought process, we can indeed gain more control over both our thoughts and emotions, as they are deeply intertwined. What we think and what we believe are different, but without thoughts there could be no belief. At least, that is I think and believe at the moment. As always and as it should be, thoughts and beliefs are subject to change without notice. 🙂
Peace, and thanks for providing such wonderful food for thought.
Thank u so much for that comment, it is indeed thought provoking (speaking of stop believing out thoughts :-))
I can actually say many things now in defense of my claim. I can say that “there is no me and therefore there is no one that thinks”, and Ian say stuff like “In some point of the process they all dissolve” and so many other “smart” sentences. In the end it is my Ego talking, trying to convince that I am right. And it is ofcourse only thoughts.
Enlightement, Awakening, Spirituality, Progress… All appear in the mind. You are totally right about it.
Eventually, each one of us has his own way, his unique and individual path. My path goes through dismissing my thoughts. And so this is what I have to share 🙂
Well put, Andy, thanks.
“Think not-thinking” is a zen meditation excersize which aims to rid our brains temporarily of the racing & buzzing thoughts in the hive of our heads. I kind of like that idea.
“Nothing is seen that was not first unseen.” was a cool concept about thought I heard at a management seminar. To wit: the imagination is the birthplace of invention. Before we could physically see a telegraph, light bulb, locomotive, airplane, radio transmitter, cell phone or space craft, it was first unseen, in other words, existing in the imagination of invention in the mind.
Lastly, my grandfather always told me “Believe none of what you hear, half of what you see, and only three-quarters of what you think.” then again, that was about social observation and avoiding gossip…
Really good post… While I was reading it I actually felt like it is just written for me! It is so true… Everyone knows that we should not believe our negative thought but it is quite tough to stop thinking that… It is quite frustrating too!!
It’s kismet or something, you liked a post of mine and I came to read more about your blog. And, so much of what is here is exactly what I need to HEAR. Funny. Thanks for sharing and for visiting.
This is very interesting content. It is all very good in theory but I can’t help but believe my thoughts and I’d really rather not. It must take a lot of practice to disbelief your own belief system. Do you have any techniques for putting thoughts out of you head and replacing them with better ones, please? 🙂
Well there’s nothing to replace them with. ALL thoughts are just thoughts. That’s it, this is what they are.
Try becoming more aware of them, you can do this in various ways, whatever works 4 u. It is not a few days process.
You can meditate, you can try intuitive writing, intuitive painting…
When a “bad” thougt or feeling arise, you can just take a pen and a paper and write it down, than start investigating it – “why are you here? Where did you come from? What are you here 2 say?”… whatever works. If u really want to do that, you will succeed.
It’s really not too difficult to put all thought out of your head for brief periods, like meditation.
Go to Armchairzen.com and check the March 2011 archive for a piece titled “Think ‘Not-Thinking'”. It works, but maybe you should try it while not driving!
I know I’m late in the game here, but what if my thoughts believe in me. The only “text”, “map”, the navigator to a safer place where I can deal with some of my most destructive thoughts?
Love your post… I noticed as a teenager or somewhere around that time that my thought reflected a lot of negative feelings which had very little to do with other people’s reality. I was creating my own, negative, version of the world around me and feeling worse as a result. So I stopped doing that. It took time and conscious effort. Thank you for visiting my blog!
Woah! Are these words your own original thoughts?
Hehehe! Amusing and interesting. Gotta say I agree to a good extent with you.
Glad though that you believed the thoughts (that birthed this post) to be worth sharing.
And thanks for the visit to my blog and spreading your colours all over.
Hi! I’m so glad you liked my blog so that I did see yours and read such a wise words. You made me a bit more wiser I’ve have never tought about this, thank you.
Hmm. This seems to be the completion and the flip side to 2 Corinthians 10:5, “Hold every thought captive.” Think it, capture it, examine it, release it or claim it, respond. Funny how truth resonates no matter the speaker. To claim it without examining – mmmmmm, not a good idea.
I absolutely concur with this post and the very title alone. My philosophy about our thoughts and are belief in them is quite similar. I will one day soon re-blog this post (with your permission of course) with an added comments from moi! Dig your site though. We need more positive vibs in our existence!
Reblogged this on Psychology, Sex, Consciousness and commented:
“He who looks outwards, dreams. He who looks inward, awakens.”
Kelly,
Thank you so much for visiting, following and reblogging.
This is such a great honor for me.
LOVE.
I like your thought provoking posts, thanks.
Beautiful 🙂
I think this is a great post.
Wait, I don’t believe that.
Wait, I don’t believe that I don’t believe that.
Wait. I don’t think I feel as though I believe I feel that I think I disbelieve this.
Wait…
Exactly 🙂
There’s a 12-step saying that may be on point, “Treat your mind like a bad neighborhood. Don’t go there alone.”
That’s a good one, I’ve got to remember that one.
You’re never alone with schizophrenia …
(Oops, sorry—couldn’t help myself.)
Dear Ido,
I keep getting this message, from many sources, which makes me trust it.
I’m wondering if you’ve ever read any Byron Katie?
This is her one message. Wrapped up in 4 questions:
Is it True? (my thought)
Can I absolutely know it’s true?
How do I react when I believe that thought?
Who would I be without that thought?
And then you can turn your statement around., and often times, the turnaround is more true.
Thanks for this post, and reminding me to keep questioning my thoughts.
🙂
Lisa
Hi Lisa,
Yes I think that Byron Katie basically speaks about the same thing.
She is a smart woman indeed.
LOVE
Oh my goodness, you speak my language!
Reblogged this on singlestreaming and commented:
Loving this new blog I found that truly speaks my language! Or at least some of it 😉
Thank you sooooo much for reblogging this.. Very Very much appreciated.
LOVE.
Hey Ido,
Eckhart Tolle has written beautifully about the need to stop identifying our selves with our minds/thoughts in order to achieve enlightenment/peace. The Power of Now.
Eckhart Tolle is the king 🙂
dear ido, thanks for liking my blog
I am looking for a “follow” – button, and did not find any -?
In the upper menu I believe.. 🙂
Thanks for taking the time to come back and reading,
PEACE
I don’t know sometimes it seems like believing your thoughts and going aggressive for what you think is right, is the right thing to do.
Indeed…this is all there is.
Reblogged this on Livingvoraciously's Blog and commented:
I like this!
THAAAANNNKKK YOUUUU 🙂
🙂 you are most welcome! right now I need to stop believing my thoughts 🙂
Thanks Ido, it’s a pleasure you stopped by my blog, It’s been wonderful exploring yours!
Our thoughts can be our worst enemy sometimes. They can also save us…if we control them…or only pay attention to the right ones. 🙂
xx
Great blog, Ido. This reminds me of the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know.” Your thoughts, although intangible, are more concrete than the physical in many cases. Let those thoughts go! It takes time but you get better.
This is such a wonderful blog… Love what u have written..
Turning off the Internal Dialogue is the only way I know of to control the thoughts that we have. Once achieved it opens you up to a different Reality. You see things without the description, the way they really are, energy! However turning off the Internal Dialogue is not an easy task. Most people don’t realize that they can stop this chatter inside their heads but It can be done.
Try this the next time you go for a walk. Look at the horizon and try to see the full view from the side of your head forewords with out focusing on any object in your vision. Now hold your pinky fingers on your hands and thumbs together something like in yoga. Start walking! Try not to break the vision (It’s kinda like a stare) and listen to everything as you walk. It will take some practice, and patients but the Internal Dialogue will slowly diminish and things will start to change before your every eyes. This is when you know you are doing it right. Keep practicing, you will be amazed. No more chatter. True perception!
Thank u 4 that great comment 🙂
I will sure try that 2day
Hi Ido, thanks for stopping by my page The Brainwash Project! I’ve had a look around your blog and I really like what I’m reading. Would you be interested in potentially writing something about thoughts and the mind for the first edition of Brainwash Magazine? You can check it out here: http://www.pozible.com/index.php/archive/index/7913/description/0/0 or email me: thebrainwashproject@gmail.com.
The mag is targeted at teenagers and is about breaking down stereotypes and looking at the world from a different perspective – essentially it encourages critical, independent thought. Anyway, I’ll leave the idea with you and hope I hear back! (If anyone else reads this and would like to be involved, I’m currently looking for submissions!)
Cheers,
Jessica
Hi Jessica,
Thank you for your offer.
I would love to do that.
Let’s talk via mail: ido@2baware.net
Great blog, Ido, it really is empowering to know you’re not your thoughts.
This is such a great blog and absolutely one of my favorite blog! btw, thank you so much for liking my my post. it’s very nice of you to do that 🙂
Thank you soo much for coming and commenting and flattering.. 🙂
PEACE
i see your point. hehehehe
hey check this out too http://thecitycolumn.wordpress.com/2012/07/29/the-monogamists/
This is so true. I often have to stop and ask myself, “Why am I thinking this and feeling this way about myself?” You’re right. Thoughts are fleeting and easily provoked by others. But knowing that is the best way to not let them control you.
Yes, the knowing is the awareness saying “hello..” 🙂
Thanks for a great post, Ido. My thoughts have run the show for so long now that they don’t like the suggestion that they might not BE me. I have a fight on my hands – but I’m up for it!!
Haha good luck,
It is a good thing when you see your thoughts – it’s the awakening of the awareness.
PEACE
Reblogged this on Don Lucuis' Chronicle.
Great Blog.
Thank your the great READ 🙂
I think you’re right about this and thoughts enter our head from all over, we file stuff when we’re not focused on it, even pick up on other conversations that may not be our own. There is an influx of stimulus coming at us every day so a wave of thoughts. So you’re right, we don’t have to take everything as an indicator of who I am. If you watched 5 horror films in a week and have a flash of blood pouring down a face – it doesn’t now mean “I’m violent!” This probably works with food, drugs, alot of things (even though that may take more practice). Anyway, I believe the mind can be turned around. The matrix wasn’t just a movie to me. Haha.
It can definately turned around, there’s a great book about it called “The brain that changes itself” – totally scientific, but written in a very simple way so that everyone can understand.
PEACE
The Brain that changes itself. I will pick that up tomorrow, thank- you. Peace. xo
In defense of thoughts and thinking, let me say this…
That is an interesting thought. Do you believe it? Why should you believe that one? Why should I believe the garbled version of it that is now in my head? Your description may well apply to some of our thoughts, or even most of our thoughts, but just possibly perhaps not all of them. If all of our thoughts were inherently untrustworthy, why would I hear the ring of truth in so many of yours? Why should anyone bother to share them? Does our search for truth simply come down to disbelief in everything we can imagine?
And what is the alternative? What should we trust instead of our thoughts? Our emotions? Our intuition? Epiphanies that arrive in profound, ecstatic flashes of insight and enlightenment? They are all thoughts as well.
I agree that we are much more than our thoughts. But I think our thoughts are a fundamental part of who we are. Our thoughts are a myriad of voices of various sources all competing for time in our consciousness. While we cannot completely control our thoughts, personal growth or enlightenment or spiritual progress, whatever we may call it, is a process of improving our thoughts, not dismissing them. It involves the development of discernment, of judgement, indeed of wisdom. As we improve our thought process, we can indeed gain more control over both our thoughts and emotions, as they are deeply intertwined. What we think and what we believe are different, but without thoughts there could be no belief. At least, that is I think and believe at the moment. As always and as it should be, thoughts and beliefs are subject to change without notice. 🙂
Peace, and thanks for providing such wonderful food for thought.
Hi Andy,
Thank u so much for that comment, it is indeed thought provoking (speaking of stop believing out thoughts :-))
I can actually say many things now in defense of my claim. I can say that “there is no me and therefore there is no one that thinks”, and Ian say stuff like “In some point of the process they all dissolve” and so many other “smart” sentences. In the end it is my Ego talking, trying to convince that I am right. And it is ofcourse only thoughts.
Enlightement, Awakening, Spirituality, Progress… All appear in the mind. You are totally right about it.
Eventually, each one of us has his own way, his unique and individual path. My path goes through dismissing my thoughts. And so this is what I have to share 🙂
PEACE friend.
Well put, Andy, thanks.
“Think not-thinking” is a zen meditation excersize which aims to rid our brains temporarily of the racing & buzzing thoughts in the hive of our heads. I kind of like that idea.
“Nothing is seen that was not first unseen.” was a cool concept about thought I heard at a management seminar. To wit: the imagination is the birthplace of invention. Before we could physically see a telegraph, light bulb, locomotive, airplane, radio transmitter, cell phone or space craft, it was first unseen, in other words, existing in the imagination of invention in the mind.
Lastly, my grandfather always told me “Believe none of what you hear, half of what you see, and only three-quarters of what you think.” then again, that was about social observation and avoiding gossip…
Be at peace,
Paz
None of these things apply to me, but I find it fascinating to read anyway 🙂
Really good post… While I was reading it I actually felt like it is just written for me! It is so true… Everyone knows that we should not believe our negative thought but it is quite tough to stop thinking that… It is quite frustrating too!!
It’s kismet or something, you liked a post of mine and I came to read more about your blog. And, so much of what is here is exactly what I need to HEAR. Funny. Thanks for sharing and for visiting.
[…] Stop believing your thoughts.. Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. ▶ No Responses /* 0) { jQuery('#comments').show('', change_location()); jQuery('#showcomments a .closed').css('display', 'none'); jQuery('#showcomments a .open').css('display', 'inline'); return true; } else { jQuery('#comments').hide(''); jQuery('#showcomments a .closed').css('display', 'inline'); jQuery('#showcomments a .open').css('display', 'none'); return false; } } jQuery('#showcomments a').click(function(){ if(jQuery('#comments').css('display') == 'none') { self.location.href = '#comments'; check_location(); } else { check_location('hide'); } }); function change_location() { self.location.href = '#comments'; } }); /* ]]> */ […]
There’s truth and then there’s fiction. Don’t mix them up, but if we don’t believe in something, then we are nothing.
This is very interesting content. It is all very good in theory but I can’t help but believe my thoughts and I’d really rather not. It must take a lot of practice to disbelief your own belief system. Do you have any techniques for putting thoughts out of you head and replacing them with better ones, please? 🙂
Hi Rachel,
Well there’s nothing to replace them with. ALL thoughts are just thoughts. That’s it, this is what they are.
Try becoming more aware of them, you can do this in various ways, whatever works 4 u. It is not a few days process.
You can meditate, you can try intuitive writing, intuitive painting…
When a “bad” thougt or feeling arise, you can just take a pen and a paper and write it down, than start investigating it – “why are you here? Where did you come from? What are you here 2 say?”… whatever works. If u really want to do that, you will succeed.
Lazypuffhead:
It’s really not too difficult to put all thought out of your head for brief periods, like meditation.
Go to Armchairzen.com and check the March 2011 archive for a piece titled “Think ‘Not-Thinking'”. It works, but maybe you should try it while not driving!
Be at peace,
Paz
I know I’m late in the game here, but what if my thoughts believe in me. The only “text”, “map”, the navigator to a safer place where I can deal with some of my most destructive thoughts?
Amen. The voices in our head are loud and confusing.
Love. LOVE.
Reblogged this on If you want to be happy – be and commented:
It’s what Dalai Lama says in his book “How to know yourself”
Another chestnut for the fire—
There was a faith healer from Deal
Said “I know that pain isn’t real
Yet when I sit on a pin
And it punctures my skin
I dislike what I fancy I feel'”
Peace …
Love your post… I noticed as a teenager or somewhere around that time that my thought reflected a lot of negative feelings which had very little to do with other people’s reality. I was creating my own, negative, version of the world around me and feeling worse as a result. So I stopped doing that. It took time and conscious effort. Thank you for visiting my blog!
Woah! Are these words your own original thoughts?
Hehehe! Amusing and interesting. Gotta say I agree to a good extent with you.
Glad though that you believed the thoughts (that birthed this post) to be worth sharing.
And thanks for the visit to my blog and spreading your colours all over.
Hi! I’m so glad you liked my blog so that I did see yours and read such a wise words. You made me a bit more wiser I’ve have never tought about this, thank you.
[…] Stop believing your thoughts.. […]
Thank you for this great article! My yoga teacher always says: you are not your thoughts, you only have them (and you can let them go).
[…] Stop believing your thoughts.. […]
Thanks Ido – you seem to have so much well sorted. It’s the being human …
Hmm. This seems to be the completion and the flip side to 2 Corinthians 10:5, “Hold every thought captive.” Think it, capture it, examine it, release it or claim it, respond. Funny how truth resonates no matter the speaker. To claim it without examining – mmmmmm, not a good idea.
Blessings,
Alyson
Howdy!
I absolutely concur with this post and the very title alone. My philosophy about our thoughts and are belief in them is quite similar. I will one day soon re-blog this post (with your permission of course) with an added comments from moi! Dig your site though. We need more positive vibs in our existence!