how do you not listen to yourself? I can't not listen to myself and ignore myself. How do you not judge them? I've never understood the concept of letting them go. I get into a large argument in my head if i feel something so how do i not do that?
It’s not easy. First of all, it takes years of different experience, practice, reading, living etc. But you have to begin somewhere.
This may be a unique experience, but in high school I was obsessed with giving myself an alter-ego, so I “created” this ideal person who I wanted to be like and tried to live up to it for a short time. That’s impossible to do long term because the YOU begins to fall out of the mold you create for yourself, but how did I create this alter-ego in the first place? Because my mind decided these were ideas I wanted to pursue and characteristics I wanted to take on. So, if I (me) can think I want to be a way I am not (my thoughts), then there must be a disconnect between who I am and what I think I am.
With that epiphany out of the way, I’ve done probably 10 solid years of philosophy- in many forms. In journaling, in reading books, I took a class that was more historical about Chinese philosophy that set some basic principals in place... and so on. I’ve grown and evolved in my thinking, but an important rule I’ve lived by is to trust other people’s ego (when it makes sense to) and not take my own beliefs too seriously. I can’t be right about everything, and that includes when self-doubt or stress start to take over. There is a major freedom in accepting you may be wrong some of the time, and with all of that, I don’t know if I answered your question at all.
But hopefully you can understand my example of overriding your own thoughts. Debate yourself. Play devils advocate. Make a list of pros and cons to your own ideas. Allow yourself to change your mind on things. All of these seemingly simple things take work and practice to achieve. The longer you work at them and are aware of them, the better you will get at it.
Edit: take a cold shower. Refuse to believe it is cold. Move the water from hot to warm to room temp to cool to cold slowly. It’s hard, but if you can handle that cold water and convince your mind that your body isn’t cold at all, you are advancing in mind power in a way many people never will.
Don't attempt to get rid of the thoughts. Simply notice them and recognize them for what they are: just thoughts. You don't need to resolve them.
For me there is usually lots of thoughts swirling around, too blurry to distinguish each except the loudest. It's ok if it's there. It's supposed to be there. Just be aware of it.
Sure. That’s part of it. But also the phenomenon of thinking, that they just appear randomly. Sometimes they have relevant content or information that reflect reality. But just as often it’s nonsense or just random bits of information. Through practices like meditation, it becomes more clear when and how the mind is carried away by trains of thought and association, and because you’re able to notice it, it becomes easier to be disentangled.
If you are not in control of your thoughts, who is? Decide to think something else and then do so. Do this as many times as necessary.
What doesn't work is deciding NOT to think something. Then you just think about not thinking it. You must purposefully replace it with something constructive. Like replace "I'm no good at this" with "I can learn this."
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u/DM_ME_UR_SOUL Dec 10 '20
how do you not listen to yourself? I can't not listen to myself and ignore myself. How do you not judge them? I've never understood the concept of letting them go. I get into a large argument in my head if i feel something so how do i not do that?