What I needed to hear today

You Are What You Think

If you use language in one way, it can support you, but if you use it in another way, it can sabotage you.

Daily Om interviewed psychologist and author Eric Maisel. (I've snipped the following from the article posted Sunday, June 30, 2024.)

 For thousands of years, natural philosophers and spiritual leaders have accurately pinpointed our thoughts as a primary source of our suffering. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is a contemporary version of that long tradition. CBT therapists ask you to notice what you are thinking, reject thoughts that aren't serving you, and replace them with thoughts that do serve you.

There are two questions that come up when we ask what will help us meet life's challenges, heal emotional distress, and deal with states of being associated with depression, anxiety, and addiction. The first is, "What's causing it?" The second is, "What helps?" Many kinds of answers have been offered to both questions. One consistent answer to the first question is "how we think," and one consistent answer to the second question is to "take charge of what you think." 

Thinking life is scary naturally leads to anxiety. Thinking that you don't matter can naturally lead to depression and continual thoughts of feeling completely overwhelmed, which can lead to addiction. The thought is tied to your moods and behaviors.

DAILY OM: "If you're smart, sensitive, and creative, I'm guessing that you're also regularly troubled." What do you mean by this?

ERIC: I have identified many of the special sources of pain and difficulty that smart, sensitive, creative people regularly face. The pain from what I've dubbed "the smart gap," the great distance between what you perceive to be your talents and abilities and the intellectual or creative work you feel called to do, ends up putting them in a small corner of a large universe.

DAILY OM: In your course, you suggest that people substitute silly words to stop caustic thought patterns. How and why does this work to alter thought patterns?

ERIC: If you use language in one way, it can support you, but if you use it in another way, it can sabotage you. If you repeatedly say, "I have no chance," that repeated demoralization really does matter. But if you change that to "I have no celery," or "I have no animal crackers," all that does is send you off shopping. Changing our inner language, in serious ways or in silly ways, really does help and really does matter.

DAILY OM: In your course, you write that we are kidnapping neurons and wearing ourselves out when we engage in negative self-talk. What do you mean by this? Eric: Our brain is made up of a large number of neurons, on the order of several billions. That sounds like an enormous number, but we have to remember that it takes millions of neurons, often hundreds of millions of neurons, to have a thought. Thinking means giving neurons over to particular thoughts. If you are using your neurons on thoughts like "I hate life," or "I need to weed my yard," then you have hundreds of millions fewer neurons available to solve your problems, create your symphony, or think pleasurable and soothing thoughts. This is actually simple, straightforward physiology.  The main way we honor the creative process is by getting quiet — that is, silencing all those thoughts that are using neurons — so that all of our neurons are available to bubble up creative ideas. I guess you could call thinking a zero-sum game. If you are worrying about your overgrown weeds, you also can't be composing your Symphony No. 9.   Daily Om goes on to offer an 8 session course, at pay rate determined by student. I may very well look further into this. I'll let you know....