After Separating Thoughts from Circumstances, What Comes Next?
My previous article explained how to separate your thoughts from the circumstances of a situation and why that skill is important and useful. Once we know how to do that, what comes next? When we can clearly see the facts from the story, we are ready to do two things: recognize that the circumstance is neutral and question the thoughts. Let’s explore both of these concepts.
You might have trouble believing that the circumstance is always neutral. This can be a difficult idea to understand and accept. We commonly think that things that happen in the world are inherently bad or good, beneficial or detrimental. But when we dig deeper, this binary starts to fall apart. Most events are good for some people and bad for others. And some incidents that seem unfavorable in the beginning turn out for the best. Also, consider that when something happens, we don’t have an opinion or feeling about it if we don’t know that it occurred. If someone says something mean about you and you never find out, then you don’t feel hurt by it. But if you hear them say it, then you have an belief about it and that belief creates the hurt feeling. The situation doesn’t jump into our body and produce an emotion. The only way we know or decide if it’s bad or good is with our thinking. Events are not fundamentally one way or the other; we generate the meaning of them with our brain.
We believe circumstances are not neutral because our efficient minds quickly categorize occurrences as bad or good. Our minds conserve energy by taking short cuts with black-and-white thinking. Most of the time this is fine; this fast thinking often serves us. But when problems arise, this type of processing is not beneficial. When we take time to learn more details about a situation or someone’s life, we get a more realistic picture. We become aware of the narrative our mind created. As we gain more insight into what transpired, the incident becomes more nuanced.
Our minds conserve energy by taking short cuts with black-and-white thinking.
If circumstances aren’t neutral, then we are held hostage by what occurs in our lives. If circumstances aren’t neutral, then when certain things happen in life (divorce, death, abuse), we have no opportunity to be happy. That thing is “bad” and therefore we are forced to feel badly. Our power over our emotions has been taken away, and we are required to have some negative feeling. That doesn’t seem right. I prefer to believe that we always have control over our thoughts and therefore our feelings. The thing that happened to us is neutral, and we can think anything we want about it.
If you’re having a hard time accepting this concept, start with the thought, “Maybe it’s true that the circumstance is always neutral.” Open yourself up a little bit to this idea. The task isn’t hard or easy, fun or boring; it just is, and then we build a story about it. She isn’t mean or nice, organized or messy; she just is. The way we think about something will change our emotions and therefore change our outcome. This doesn’t mean that we have to feel positive about events or that we have to change our thinking at any time. We simply have the option of doing so. And that is empowering.
Once we’ve identified the factual circumstance of our challenge and recognized that it is neutral, then we know that everything else comes from thoughtland. It’s now time to question those thoughts. Ideally you have written out your thoughts about the problem and isolated a specific circumstance.
Here are some example thoughts of a parent whose child got in trouble at school.
• He’s always getting in trouble.
• He’s been a problem since he was little.
• He’s the hardest of all my children.
• His teachers probably hate him.
• His teachers think I’m a horrible mother.
• Maybe I am a horrible mother.
• He’ll probably end up in jail.
• He’ll never learn.
After writing these thoughts you ask yourself what exactly happened. This is how we pinpoint the circumstance. In this situation it might be “The principal said, ‘You son will be suspended for three days for vandalizing the school.” (Notice that these are just words. If he said them in a different language, you wouldn’t have any feelings about them. The words are neutral until you think a thought about them. You probably would have lots of thoughts and feelings about these words, which is fine, but that doesn’t mean that the words themselves are good or bad. The words create an emotion inside you when you interpret them and fit them into a story.)
When you list your thoughts, don’t worry if they are mean, outlandish, or critical. Don’t judge them or try to hide from them. It’s okay to have any thought. We want to see them all. Shine a light on all the dark corners you are tempted to avoid. It’s impossible to question thoughts that we’re not aware of. When we get them down on paper and out of our mind, we can start to explore them more. We can ask if they are helping or hindering, and we can question their validity and their importance.
Shine a light on all the dark corners you are tempted to avoid.
Every idea our brain offers us is optional. Our default mind suggests notions all day long. Most of these don’t cause us any problems, and so we never question them. Some of them do cause us problems, and we still don’t think to question them. Imagine all your thoughts out in front of you and visualize sorting through them. Examine each one and consciously decide if it’s worth keeping.
You may not realize it, but you can believe anything you want. At first your mind will tell you that this one idea is right, and you can’t just not believe it. When you suggest the opposite of that notion, your brain will say, “That’s not true. You’re deluding yourself.” But here’s a secret — it’s a delusion either way!
Let’s say that the one of your painful ideas is “My kids play video games too much.” (By the way, is that a circumstance or thought? Can you identify what the circumstance might be?) If you want to change the notion to “My kids play video games exactly the right amount,” your brain will revolt. It will tell you that the first sentence is true and the second one is a made-up story. But what you have to realize is they are both stories. It’s a delusion either way. The only circumstance is something like, “My kids played video games for 8 hours today.”
Here’s another example. A woman who was having marriage trouble heard a podcast from a renowned marriage therapist. In the episode, the therapist said that both spouses have to put effort in for the marriage to improve. She respected this person’s opinion, and so she felt discouraged because her husband was not willing to work on the marriage.
When we hear something from an authority figure, our brain has even more evidence to view that idea as truth. But it’s not; it’s still a thought. Let’s see what’s really going on here. The circumstance would be “The podcaster said, ‘Both spouses have to work on the problem.’” Her thought is probably a version of, “My marriage is doomed to failure.” It won’t be her husband’s lack of participation that kills the marriage, however. It will be the feelings and actions motivated by that notion. Her mind will work to make it true — unless she realizes that this thought is optional.
Yes, the podcaster said that, but that’s an opinion. It has little bearing on the woman’s marriage until she makes it so. When she separates out the fact from the thought, she gains leverage over the situation. Then she can address the thought and ask if it’s serving her. Will that notion motivate her to work on her marriage? Will it help her develop solutions for improving her life? Probably not.
This is how we question our thoughts, by recognizing that they are all made up, consciously deciding whether we want to keep them, and opening our eyes to other ways of viewing the experience. A few questions you can ask are “What would it feel like if I dropped this thought?” “Where did I get this idea?” “What if I’m wrong?”
The more you learn about mind management, the more tools you will have for questioning your thoughts and replacing them with ones that better serve you.
You may not know how to change your thinking or discover other perspectives yet. Keep reading these articles. The more you learn about mind management, the more tools you will have for questioning your thoughts and replacing them with ones that better serve you. For now, you may have to simply try on the idea that thoughts are optional and that you can believe anything you want.
Isn’t our brain fascinating? It is amazing to uncover the story your mind has created and separate it from the actual event. Our minds are always trying to protect us, but sometimes the default settings don’t give us the best results. We need to sift through the many ideas our brain offers us and find which ones serve us and which ones we can discard. Get all your thoughts out on paper, but don’t be attached to any of them. Be open to the idea that there are very few factual circumstances, that they are neutral until we have opinion, and that we can think anything we want about them.
Try this on: “Maybe it’s true that the circumstance is always neutral.”
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