“I love this analogy so helpful… over the last few years it has changed EVERYTHING for me.” ~ Julie, UK
In yesterday's Daily Reminder, we looked at how particularly hurtful, repetitive thoughts and feelings can be understood, and alleviated, by thinking about how clocks work. 🕙
It's a metaphor that came to mind while I was working with a client, who was experiencing a really sticky thought like this themselves. And while it really landed for them, it did lead to a question (a common one):
“How? How do I ignore thoughts like that?”
Now, putting aside the fact that this is exactly how you would expect a mind—that genuinely believes it's in charge and feels it has to do something—to respond, let's look at another helpful metaphor.
A practical one.
‘Trains of thought’
It's a saying we're all familiar with, isn't it? It signifies a succession of connected thoughts (and appeared in literature a full 100 years before trains were even a thing)! 😯
At the risk of mixing my metaphors here, one of my mentors describes thoughts like rabbits – put a couple of them together and before you know it, you've got loads! And this is what a negative train of thought can be like. There's a whole string of carriages connected. 🚂🚋🚋🚋🚋🚋
We have a thought, maybe one we're quite familiar with, and before we know it, we're busy thinking about our thinking,
“Oh no, not again! Aaargh, what's wrong with me? Oh I'm sick of this. What should I do? Should I read something? Speak to someone about it? I need to get a handle on this don't I? Or some help. No, maybe I'll watch some TV/have a glass of wine/eat something…”
…and on it goes.
A train of thought.
But what if we saw that literally as being on a train? Might that help?
It could look something like this:
We notice from our feelings that we're off-track and we think, “Ooh, I'm on a train here, aren't I? A train of thought.”
Now, because this train of thought is maybe one we're quite familiar with, we know exactly where it goes. It goes nowhere good.
So what do we do?
(This is as close to ‘free will’ as I'm willing to go – think of it more as ‘free won't’ 😆)
Because as we learned yesterday, “there are a kajillion other thoughts up for grabs, all the time” – in other words, there'll be another train; a different thought will be along shortly. Any thought.
But we have to get off the one we're on, first.
In fact, we can wait at the station instead, on the platform, watching all the trains come and go, aware that we can (and will) get on or off any of them at any time.
It's profoundly liberating.
Will it cure everything?
Hey, never say never, but from experience, that's unlikely.
What it will do, is start improving things for you immediately.
(→ Whenever you do it, basically. Our entire experience is Thought, remember?)
And because you're human, you'll notice two more things:
- You get off one train, and a couple of minutes later, you find that you're on another one, dammit! 🤨
(→ So you get off again.) - The trains often have a comfortable familiarity to them. Plush seating. Table service with nice food. ☺️
(→ But you remember that a First Class ticket to Shitsville still ultimately takes you to Shitsville… So you get off again.)
And because you're built to thrive, you'll notice this, too:
- The more you do this, the easier it gets; you'll spend way more time at the station, being, on the platform; find yourself on far fewer rubbish trains, and get off those a lot quicker, when you do.
(→ Hey, maybe it is the cure for everything?)
😉
Giles