Not being able to stop thinking is a terrible thing, that mental noise that accompanies us constantly prevents us from finding inner calm and, to a greater extent, the connection with ourselves.
We live in an age of speed and indeterminacy, surrounded by thousands of tasks to do that we sometimes postpone, because time is running out, as we make this decision, another idea arises behind the steps of our mind, which contributes to our overload. So we ended the day with the feeling that we hadn’t achieved everything we had planned to do, and if we did, with a terrible sense of tiredness and irritability, why do we still have so much more to do?Yes, we live back and forth, surrounded by a lot of noise, the street and our intern.
- We have become dependent on our thinking and.
- As a result.
- We have disconnected from ourselves.
- This mental noise that accompanies us.
- Thought.
- In addition to preventing us from having moments of calm.
- Also has the ability to create a false self manufactured by the mind.
- Which throws a cloak of suffering and fear.
But why is this happening?
We often identify with our thinking, creating our minds an opaque network of a lot of labels, concepts, words, judgments, images that block the true relationship with ourselves.
And then we believe that we are our spirit, the instrument that invades us.
“It is quite common for our own inner voice to be our worst enemy, and we live with a torturer in our heads who attacks and punishes us, depleting our vital energy. Eckhart Tolle.
We must learn to observe and distance ourselves from the thoughts and emotions we arouse, to know how to distinguish between the act of having a thought, the content of what has been thought and the person (we) who perceives it.
To do this, I propose the metaphor of the chessboard?(Wilson and Luciano, 2002) to demonstrate the importance of an observer who recognizes and accepts.
Imagine a chessboard. Upstairs, the pieces collide, while the stage only has the role of observer, the board never loses, but the pieces fight and sometimes are removed, now let’s apply this to our case.
If we fight our fears and worries, with black or white coins, the game will never end, because when one game ends, another will begin, placing us in a vicious circle. The goal is to play the game by serving as a board, that is, to watch the fight without participating, in this way we can consider the pieces as our thoughts or even as our feelings, reminding us and witnessing that that does not make our identity, we are not of thought, but of table capable of containing all the cognitive content.
As I explained earlier, verbalizations, words, and thoughts, however true, are not facts.
Note: The mind is an excellent instrument if used correctly, however, if misused, it is very destructive (Eckhart Tolle)
Image courtesy of Lee Kyeong Hwan