For the majority of us - the chances are that we feel that we deliberately think our thoughts - like, ‘manually’.
And then we have negative thoughts - they surprise us, assault us - ambush us.
We are then as victims of our negative thoughts - and there seems to be no agency, no control.
However - even early on in discovering practices such as meditation - we realise that we’re ‘receiving’ thoughts somehow, experiencing them from without - not deriving them manually nor all that deliberately at all.
It occurred to me one day that - while going from one room in the house to another - I’m suddenly afflicted by some negative thought.
But then - with literally no real effort to get rid of that thought (because I’m quite the anxious type of person - and am used to them) - I’d need to go to another room to get something - and by the time that I’m there, the negative thought just disappeared.
As someone who’s very accustomed to observing themselves from without - I suddenly found it interesting that such negative, ‘real’ thoughts - suddenly vapourised.
What was that about? Could I tap that effect somehow - and have a life much less subject to the vagaries of negative thought appearances?
I mean, if the worry was that real - it should at least have lasted the few minutes it took to go from one room to another (or, more typically - somewhere outdoors - like to the bins).
Then one day - a certain key penny dropped for me.
This centres around the analogy of an aeroplane in flight.
Thoughts exist like clouds around us.
And we - all living humans on earth right now - are travelling through this thought-field all day and night.
Michael Jackson used to famously cut interviews short sometimes because he said that he needed to get back to the studio in case a new song or melody was put out into the Universe - and he didn’t want Prince to get to it and turn it into a song first!
This phenomenon - where a given ‘thought-cloud’ was just out there, across the World, and those who were in tune with the required frequency of Vibration - would all receive it, at the same time.
So literally across the globe - a given technical invention, or piece of music, or notion would occur at the same time to different people at completely different parts of the World - because that invention, or concept, or piece of music, or scientific breakthrough - existed in the thought-field, and those who were attuned to it - received it.
So how does this help you deal with your day-to-day affliction AKA sudden appearance of negative thoughts?
Two things - your behaviour and routines, and your Vibrational state (frequency) - determine in what kind of ‘weather system’ you’re flying your mind through.
So imagine the ‘lower atmosphere’.
Here - you will come across light clouds, dark, heavy clouds, thundery rain-filled clouds, turbulent air and unpredictable thermals - etc.
Fly a little higher - and you literally surpass all of that - and there’s only blue skies and consistent air density.
So this then serves as an excellent way to think about how our behaviour will affect what types of thoughts we come across.
Take an example of when you keep on experiencing the same negative thoughts at around the same time in the morning.
This is often down to a repeated behaviour pattern - often fixed-down as and hidden within a routine or bad habit (e.g. a lack of mind-hygiene first thing in the morning).
This is the equivalent of following the same flight-path every morning - and then being surprised that you’re coming across the self-same cloud or weather patterns - every morning.
Equally - you’re going about your day - quite happily - then suddenly, out of nowhere - a negative thought afflicts you. No pattern as such - just left-of-field from nowhere.
You need to view this as the equivalent of your plane (you - your mind) having just entered a heavy cloud system.
You can then ‘do nothing’ and gamble on how deep the system will be (how long the mood will last), or - you can alter your behaviour - and in effect change the plane’s course to cut straight up and out of the heavy clouds.
When you’re in a plane - nobody questions turbulence - it’s simply par for the course of being up there.
The same goes for being alive as a human - the vagaries of our moods are essentially par for the course.
However - let’s stop being accosted and surprised by the various negative thought-fields that we fly through, throughout the day.
Let’s see it for what it is - and learn how to ride it out, or minimise it.
Most practically - do something different - literally anything, e.g. try going to a different location in your home, or outdoors, or start a different task.
This will often break the flight-path that you were on and divert your mind out of the dark cloud system you’d just stumbled into.
Deploying the analogy further, to see if it serves us as well as I think it does:
What do white fluffy clouds represent - and how to get to them in real life?
What do clear blue skies represent - and how to get to those?
White, fluffy clouds - are neutral to positive thoughts.
Blue skies - are no thought at all.
In the analogy - the aircraft needs to fly high enough to get to white clouds only, and to surpass any cloud systems at all - it has to go to 30,000ft to arrive in 100% blue skies (and indeed 100% sunshine - no night, even).
For your mind - ‘flying higher’ entails existing at a higher Vibrational state.
This is not as nebulous nor as woo-woo as it sounds.
Flow is one way to tap into a higher Vibrational state. Even washing the dishes can lead to a Flow state - we all access Flow every day.
There are many other ways to get into and remain in a higher Vibrational state - e.g. music (playing, or listening), or playing with your dog, going for a walk, etc.
Then - it turns into a virtuous cycle - whereby your very lifestyle and indeed habits, behaviours and rituals - generate a higher inner Vibration, and that leads to operating in higher skies - which in turns keeps you in a better mental state - as opposed to fighting heavy weather systems much of the time.
And blue skies represent the meditative state - no thoughts at all.
This occurs during Flow - but also during active meditation, and involuntary meditation, say, or while you’re driving or watching a film, or listening to music.
Indeed - if you occupy this place and space most of the time - you are in a quite rare state of Enlightenment. Blue skies are peace of certitude (not ‘happiness’ - which is a false goal, because it’s not an equilibrium state).
You only need to tap these skies once or twice a day in order to live a pleasant life.
These rest of the times - execute your day, your behaviours, routines, etc, consciously - to maintain flight most of the time in that part of the atmosphere which mainly contains white fluffy clouds.
If you find a negative thought appear to you - know that you’ve just dipped into lower weather systems - and course-correct with the advice above.
In conclusion therefore - I want you to have the necessary mental imagery of how your minds interact with thoughts, and how to be less at their mercy when you fly through clouds of negative thoughts - which costs you time and effectiveness as a person.
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