Are you your thoughts?

[SimonSays]

The reason I ask is because I don’t think we are.

I could ask where do our thoughts come from? But we know that we are influenced by so many things and in many ways that’s not the point of this question.

There are times when I realise that I am seeing my thoughts rather than being them. And in seeing them the space that I am in lets me recognise that they are thoughts. I am observing them. I no longer have to identify with them or accept them. This encourages them to quieten down.

So who are we then if we are not that which we think ourselves to be?

Who is observing all this? And if this observer is the real me, can this one also be seen?

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Part of the answer lies in this thing called "self-motivation".

Examples: I know that I should go up to this person and introduce myself,...but I don't. I know that I shouldn't eat that piece of pie after a large meal,...but I do. I know that I should be investing more in my retirement,...but I don't. I know that I should buckle down and finish my university degree,...but I don't. I should call my mother,...but I don't.

It could be anything. The thoughts are there. You know what you should be doing,...but you don't obey your inner monologue.

As a result, many of us end up short of our expectations, perhaps with self-destructive behaviors, perhaps hurting others, and at the very least, being unsatisfied with life.

As said,...this is part of the answer.

 

[SimonSays]

Part of the answer lies in this thing called "self-motivation".

Examples: I know that I should go up to this person and introduce myself,...but I don't. I know that I shouldn't eat that piece of pie after a large meal,...but I do. I know that I should be investing more in my retirement,...but I don't. I know that I should buckle down and finish my university degree,...but I don't. I should call my mother,...but I don't.

It could be anything. The thoughts are there. You know what you should be doing,...but you don't obey your inner monologue.

As a result, many of us end up short of our expectations, perhaps with self-destructive behaviors, perhaps hurting others, and at the very least, being unsatisfied with life.

As said,...this is part of the answer.

Good points.

All of those examples you mention are of course just beliefs. Thoughts we think to ourselves as if we have to either resist or accept them because we believe they are who and how we are supposed to be. But they are just thoughts even the ones we call beliefs.

So it could be that we actually prefer to do things differently but those and other beliefs make us feel like we have no choice, that we are obligated to follow a particular path, do a particular thing, when in reality the truth is we would rather do something else. Beliefs are powerful.

But if we can decide what we believe without concluding how this might affect either somebody else or even us in the future, then we might come to a place where we can truly experience the here and now which is after all, all there ever is.

So what happens if we practice, as those who practice meditation tell us, to still the mind, release those thoughts, and just be in the present. Who are we then?

Are we free of the constraints of our beliefs, often acquired from peers or parents or those we consider authority, so that we may be different to who we have thought ourselves to be?

People may get hurt, it happens all the time, but that doesn’t mean there was any intention to do so. That we are in fact uniquely individual beings not designed to simply fit in order to be accepted as most of us are taught to do.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

@SimonSays :

Beliefs are partially based upon personal/life experience and how we interpreted that experience. For example,...three people experience the same event,...then someone asks each of them, "What did you learn?" You're likely to receive three different answers.

As autistics, we know our sensory experiences, our brain morphology, and neurotransmitter balances are different than neurotypicals,...therefore, our personal experiences are going to be different,...therefore, our belief systems are going to be affected.

Then, there is the phenomenon of "I think, therefore, I am". A common tool for motivational speakers, self-hypnosis, meditation, etc. There appears to be an effect there, as well.

Then, there is "reprogramming". For example, religious and political beliefs,...sometimes for good,...sometimes resulting in harm.

Let's not forget about actual academic learning, structured or self-taught, and it's affect upon the beliefs.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I think of my thoughts as the "quantum foam" of my reality - both good stuff and bad stuff is constantly popping in and out out existence there.

I can choose to nurse the negative thoughts or reject them. Same with the positive. What I decide to do with those thoughts is what defines me.

I am not my thoughts. I am my decisions.

 

[OkRad]

Consciousness and how we came to be conscious is a terrible maze. Scientists still do not know how or when that happened.

In some ways, thoughts are just like bile or insulin, a mere byproduct of an organ (brain). If thoughts go bad they can, like bile backing up, effect the organ. And if they go really bad, they can, like defective insulin, kill us.

Thoughts for all of us are remarkably similar given the same stimuli. We think we have a startling or different thoughts, but most of us have the same bile as everyone else and the by-products of our colon's certainly can change with different and cultural stimuli.

The only difference is the brain is aware of its byproducts in a similar way the eye can "see" floaters, etc.

We are strange creatures, almost rule by the by-product of a single organ. How odd

 

[Neonatal RRT]

"...There are times when I realize that I am seeing my thoughts rather than being them. And in seeing them the space that I am in lets me recognize that they are thoughts. I am observing them. I no longer have to identify with them or accept them. This encourages them to quieten down...."

Working in health care one will occasionally be introduced to an individual who is hallucinating,...and they are quite aware that they are hallucinating. It is a bit sad and can be humorous at the same time,..."I know you can't see this, but that squirrel has a knife and is threatening to cut me." An extreme example of "mental separation" that actually allows the sufferer to keep some sense of calm in what might otherwise be a terrifying situation,...a coping mechanism. As I am reading your original post, I am sensing some small degree of this "mental separation",...I am not suggesting anything,...I just find your viewpoints interesting and has stimulated my curiosity in a good way.

So who are we then if we are not that which we think ourselves to be?

It's been my observation that we are, for the most part, who we think ourselves to be. If you are thinking yourself to be a "winner", then your behavior tends to reflect that, and sometimes it does become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are thinking yourself a "victim" of sorts, then your behavior tends to reflect that, and sometimes bad things happen to reinforce those thoughts. Having said that, others may not see you in that way. A bully may see himself as "a tough guy",...but others might see him as being very insecure and mentally weak. Putting this all together, it would appear that the milieu of past experiences, neurotransmitter balance, specific environmental situation, education, and so on creates this nebulous and ever-changing thing we call "me, myself, and I". Personally, I would never consider myself as some sort of "static" being, but rather quite dynamic depending upon several variables in the moment.

 

[Nervous Rex]

The only difference is the brain is aware of its byproducts in a similar way the eye can "see" floaters, etc.

We are strange creatures, almost rule by the by-product of a single organ. How odd

“I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this.” - Emo Philips

 

[SimonSays]

I think of my thoughts as the "quantum foam" of my reality - both good stuff and bad stuff is constantly popping in and out out existence there.

I can choose to nurse the negative thoughts or reject them. Same with the positive. What I decide to do with those thoughts is what defines me.

I am not my thoughts. I am my decisions.

I really like this.

you reveal what I was trying to get at. You see your thoughts and reside in a space of awareness. Action not reaction. Living in the ’I am-ness’. Nice.

 

[SimonSays]

@Neonatal RRT

...As I am reading your original post, I am sensing some small degree of this "mental separation",...I am not suggesting anything,...I just find your viewpoints interesting and has stimulated my curiosity in a good way.

That’s very interesting to me.

In the practice of meditation, the idea is to reach a state of stillness or Zen. But if stillness is reached it rarely remains still, but now, any thought that arises can be seen clearly and allowed to pass. Of course if it’s a particularly interesting one then it can be explored from the state of the observer. But this is not the idea, although I can say I am often tempted into doing just that.
But there are some moments when the mind ceases for a moment and if I’m lucky and don’t recognise it so that it’s no longer where it was, that emptiness feels wonderful and very real.

It’s interesting that you mention those who hallucinate because in the past when I’ve had the chance to take a psychedelic, I never Hallucinate but the separation feeling is quite remarkable. Perhaps meditation practice helps experience these things.

 

[Wolfsage]

We aren't. Unless we choose to be.
Another question might be like it. Might be. Who decides our reality? Us? Science? Our ability to perceive the world? Or our beliefs?

 

[SimonSays]

We aren't. Unless we choose to be.
Another question might be like it. Might be. Who decides our reality? Us? Science? Our ability to perceive the world? Or our beliefs?

Definitely the last two.

 

[Fino]

We are our souls, and consciousness is adequate proof of God.

 

[Hylian]

I sincerely hope I am not my thoughts. If my intrusive thoughts were how I actually felt about/wanted to act about things I'd be horrified.

 

[SimonSays]

I sincerely hope I am not my thoughts. If my intrusive thoughts were how I actually felt about/wanted to act about things I'd be horrified.

So in a way you know what you want and who you are by recognising what you don’t want and what isn’t you in those thoughts. That sounds like you have become aware through resistance. If only those intrusive thoughts could be transformed into supporting ones now you are.

 

[SimonSays]

We are our souls, and consciousness is adequate proof of God.

In many ways I agree with this, and yet who knows how differently we may define the idea of ‘soul’ and especially ’God’ if we attempted to do so.

But it is something I am often tempted to go into because it can be so interesting as to where it takes me. Trouble is it needs a lot of words to do so, and can become easily misunderstood. But I would be interested. Another thread perhaps.

 

[SusanLR]

Are we free of the constraints of our beliefs, often acquired from peers or parents or those we consider authority, so that we may be different to who we have thought ourselves to be?

This is one thing I've always been. Free of beliefs acquired from peers, parents, authority or religion.
I've always remained open to what others say or believe, each has their right, but, I make my own decisions on beliefs.
I started questioning what it's all about and how it works, this thing called life at age 9 and came to
my own conclusions which I started deriving from science, logic and beliefs.

Who are you? A question I said couldn't be answered.
You aren't your name, what you do, or how you believe. Those are all things that make up
what you go by through life to identify yourself to others.

Science can't really answer what thoughts are.
We know we have a visceral body and a brain. The brain is like the switchboard for our
physical body. It works through neural connections, chemical reactions, energy that flows through
the nerves.
That's what makes our body able. But, what makes a thought? And what are they exactly?
What/who controls them?

That answer will be different from person to person depending on what beliefs they have formed.
My personal belief to the question are we our thoughts? No.
And we can only use them to the extent the brain is formed to produce the reaction from them.
The thought itself starts from what I call a soul consciousness that filters down from the higher
self energy that resides in the physical body.

So I do believe in a soul that resides in the body and is connected to the universe.
It isn't really seperate, but, seems that way the denser it becomes until there is a body
which seems apart from everything else.

Love this subject. It is a philosophy that can't be determined for certain, but, can be
traced via science, via thoughts to a certain point.
For now, we can't go beyond a certain point and retain proof. It then becomes belief.
The Universe/God existing in many levels of energy to experience all experiences.
So you are the Universal ALL.
Reading Pythagorean Hyolozics might be interesting to you.

 

[SimonSays]

I started questioning what it's all about and how it works, this thing called life at age 9 and came to
my own conclusions which I started deriving from science, logic and beliefs.

For me it happened around 7.

I had been placed in an orthodox Jewish primary school, Even though my parents weren’t orthodox Jewish, in fact it was hard to see that they were Jewish at all in many ways. There, I was expected to accept and believe what I was being told was true. I couldn’t. It just seemed wrong to have to do so, especially when any question I might ask was put down. As a result I rejected the indoctrination somehow, which caused me untold trouble as you might imagine. Unfortunately when the time came to move from this school to a secondary school, I had no choice but to go to a state secular school, and there, ironically, I got to experience the effects of anti-Semitism in a way that my previous 10 years had simply not prepared me for. The price for rejecting the protection of the bubble. Never mind the fact that I was autistic which had not been realised.

 

[SusanLR]

Exactly.
I could not accept and believe what I was told to be absolute truth either.
My rejection caused some problems between me and my Mother who wanted to mold me
to believe the same as she did.

As far as protection of the bubble, I think autism helped me to not be effected by thinking my own way.
It gave me another bubble that I've lived with all my life that has protected me from what others
think, but, leaves me rather lonely...a bubble of emotional detachment to the world around me.
Some called me a Renegade. Couldn't be coralled.
I just wasn't part of the herd.

 

[SimonSays]

Exactly.
I could not accept and believe what I was told to be absolute truth either.
My rejection caused some problems between me and my Mother who wanted to mold me
to believe the same as she did.

As far as protection of the bubble, I think autism helped me to not be effected by thinking my own way.
It gave me another bubble that I've lived with all my life that has protected me from what others
think, but, leaves me rather lonely...a bubble of emotional detachment to the world around me.
Some called me a Renegade. Couldn't be coralled.
I just wasn't part of the herd.

It seems that more of us are not part of any herd.

I’m a little bit different regarding the ’bubble’ in that I went from not being concerned with what others think, or at least not being affected by them, to very sensitive to the reactions and actions of other people. To the point where I try to keep myself separate so that I don’t have to be so affected or have to resist. It still finds its way to me though, unexpectedly testing me, showing me that for whatever reason I am now hyper sensitive.

It can vary between a feeling of comfortable solitude to isolating loneliness. But then I was mostly alone growing up so I guess I’m just used to it.