I Think Therefore I Am (probably my own worst enemy).
I’ve been thinking about thinking. And I have some thoughts about thinking that I’d like to share.
There’s an ancient Hawaiian proverb that says, “The World is What You Think It Is.” A simple, yet potent concept that suggests that perception is everything. I happen to agree.
Thinking is a mixed bag – our thoughts and beliefs (a.k.a., thoughts with personality) have led to both amazing advancements and incredible suffering. I’ll be focusing on the problematic side of thinking simply because it’s the source of a great deal of misery, and my experiences have shown me that with a little mental elbow grease unhealthy thoughts and beliefs can be examined and addressed. It’s not easy, but it’s a worthwhile endeavor.
Perception. What we believe about ourselves, the world, and how we make sense of the unexplainable colors our experience of reality. We can literally believe anything we want to believe, and you don’t have to travel very far before bumping up against some real head scratchers. Beliefs inform our sense of self (e.g., I’m not good at anything), our understanding of why things are the way they are (e.g., It’s god’s plan), our pursuits (e.g., Business majors make the most money), and our behavior (e.g., I’m doing the paleo diet because we’re meant to eat like hunter-gatherers . . . unless there’s cake). And sometimes these beliefs have devastating effects. You only have to look as far as the latest headlines to see evidence of this. How many times in the last year, even the last month, have individuals or groups with radical ideologies, usually religious, intentionally caused harm because of their beliefs? And depending on whom you talk or listen to you’ll be exposed to various “ideas” explaining why people with radical ideologies do bad things – each person quite certain that he or she has figured it out. When that happens we’re dealing with perceptions about perceptions. The complexity grows.
Are we responsible for what we think and believe? Particularly if those thoughts and beliefs have detrimental consequences for others? Is that morally acceptable? And what about the unhealthy beliefs we have about ourselves that result in our own suffering? It takes immense courage to hold your beliefs in the spotlight and subject them to the scrutiny of reason. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do not just because of the humility involved, but because we can trick ourselves into thinking that what we believe is “just fine” since we can rationalize, justify, and intellectualize anything to make it okay or to keep us from deeper personal examination. But if you do begin to look at the content of your beliefs you might make an interesting discovery: You might realize that you’re completely full of shit, which is kind of freeing if you think about it. (This is my unprofessional way of saying that we deceive ourselves, and therefore others, most of the time.) We’re all full of shit, although some of us are trying to be less full of shit. Again, a worthwhile endeavor.
We (and by “we” I mean all of us) have a few traits that make being human and exposing our deceptions mighty challenging:
We’ve figured it out. We like to understand why things are the way they are, so we expend more mental energy than anyone probably cares to admit analyzing and reanalyzing until we come up with what we fancy is a “sensible” explanation for whatever it is we don’t understand. Whew. Nailed it! What a relief.
We like to be right. We can do some crazy mental gymnastics, twisting our experiences into pretzels so that they fit into the shape of our existing beliefs. And then we can do a google search and find that at least one other person on the planet has come to the same conclusion . . . so it must be true (#evidence).
We’re going to die. We are creatures who have the capacity for abstract thought, which means we can ponder ourselves in the past and in the future. And because of this ability the only thing we know with certainty is that at some point each of us will die. Terror ensues. Maybe not consciously, but it’s there humming in the background like an old smelly refrigerator. We all have to come to terms with our demise in one way or another. Enter “beliefs” (refer to 1 and 2 above). And the beliefs we choose to latch on to as a way to make sense of our experiences and to make the inevitability of our death tolerable are so deeply embedded in our unconscious minds that they become like cement in our psyches. No one is immune.
There you have it, a recipe for a diabolical mental cocktail.
And it’s heartbreaking. In my twenty plus years as a psychotherapist I’ve witnessed how deeply people torture themselves with their unhealthy thoughts and beliefs and the various ways they cope with what they believe is their unfortunate personal truth and the dark feelings that emerge from that understanding. More recently I’ve seen where people who don’t believe they deserve good health or who believe they can’t trust their bodies limit the effects of their body’s innate ability to heal itself when spending time in the Life Vessel. But where I’ve really seen the devastating effects of negative beliefs is in my shamanic practice where I perceive in great detail the narratives that loop like a bad dream in the depths of a person’s unconscious. Where talk therapy focuses on developing insight and strategies to manage unhealthy beliefs, (in other words, talking about thinking), shamanic intervention provides a way to interact directly with the narratives that live in the shadows of the unconscious and to begin to write a new story, one that’s brimming with personal power and possibility. Sometimes we need a helping hand, a little support.
But what if you want to tackle examining your beliefs on your own, to work towards creating a Positive Mental Attitude? What if you’re saying to yourself, “Wendy, I think I’m full of shit. And by the way, I think you’re a buzzkill for bringing all this shit up.” How would you go about being less full of shit?
Believe it or not, I have some thoughts about this too. Shocking, I know.
If we’re to apply the laws of logic to this dilemma, being less full of shit means being more honest, discovering what’s true. Keeping it real.
How do we know when something is true? To me, figuring that out is a pretty intimate process, one that we each have to wrestle with in our own way. But there are examples of truth all around us. All you have to do is step outside. Nature is the perfect teacher. If you spend time in nature you’ll re-absorb some of this truth just by paying attention to your surroundings. Nature is beautiful, awe-inspiring, peaceful, and vibrant. Nature is violent, destructive, messy and frightening. Nature is death and rebirth and death and rebirth.
We (and by “we” I mean all of us) are a part of the natural world. So that must mean we have the same qualities. But we have the added capacity to be moral individuals (thank you, neocortex), which means we don’t have to act on every dark impulse that resides in us (hello, limbic system). We can acknowledge that it’s there and is a part of us, with the goal of eventually making friends with it so that you can tamp it down before it goes out and does something stupid or it can be expressed in a safe, appropriate way. Once you’ve had a few beers with your dark side, you’ll find that it’s actually an ally that can help you understand the complexities of life.
So, if you can work towards accepting nature’s truth as your own, you might be getting somewhere and in doing so be able to admit:
I haven’t figured anything out. Maybe being okay with the mystery of life will do.
I’m not right. And I don’t need to be.
I’m still going to die. But it’s okay because people, plants, animals, stars, galaxies, etc. do it all the time and it’ll probably work out okay.
Sinking into this kind of honesty invites a sense of freedom. And isn’t that what we’re all wanting?
New bumper sticker idea: Think Responsibly ™
This soapbox moment was brought to you by my sadness with all the suffering in the world, Doritos® Cool Ranch® flavored tortilla chips, and cars.com – the perfect car is just a few clicks away.