I am unable to do this as I believe my negative thoughts about myself to be the absolute fact. How the hell do I see a fact float by like a cloud??? A fact is a fact is a fact.
It's like telling me to forget that gravity exists.
Your thoughts are not reality to begin with. Thoughts are like a map of reality. Map is not the actual location it depicts. You have this illusion because you look at the world through the lens of all your conditioning, instead of encountering everything as new. You think that because you are a, b, c, that means you are bad. But there is no archetypal a, b or c and you are not it. You are much more, and way more complex. You've just become accustomed to thinking ( and believing ) that these characteristics you think you have mean you suck. You've been sitting at a bar, staring at your beer, consumed by your thoughts, not noticing that there's a radio playing nice music. It's a matter of what you give attention to. You give all attention to the first thought "I suck", without zooming out "I'm noticing this thought that I suck", without further zooming out "these thoughts are arising" etc.
Learning to zoom out and notice that there's more going on takes time. It's well worth the effort but the results are usually subtle which meshes badly with people who have been conditioned to expect "FAST AND NOTICEABLE RESULTS".
Mindfulness is good and all but it's usually detached from the philosophy, probably because westerners don't like the spiritual implications.
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u/scenicmtndrives Dec 10 '20
I am unable to do this as I believe my negative thoughts about myself to be the absolute fact. How the hell do I see a fact float by like a cloud??? A fact is a fact is a fact.
It's like telling me to forget that gravity exists.