A thought is harmless unless we believe it.I like this idea. It's not our thoughts or our ideas that give us problems, but our beliefs, the thoughts that we hold to be true. She continues:
It is not our thoughts but the attachment to our thoughts that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring.The point of problem is when we believe that something is so thoroughly true that we cannot see contrary evidence. And many of those beliefs are self-limiting beliefs about ourselves, about others, and about our relationship to others.
"Knowing" what someone else is "always going to do" is an example of such a self-limiting belief. It's true that they've done it in the past. They may even do it this time. But do you really know that they are going to do it this time? Can you grant them the possiblity of change? When they do it again can you say "that was interesting" and not "I knew it" or "I told you so?"
Katie's idea, which I like, is to turn beliefs back into ordinary thoughts by robbing them of their power to alter our behavior. You look at a belief and ask "Is it true?" you are on your way. Because all rules--at least the rules of dealing with humans--have exceptions. Deciding that there can be no exceptions to a rule traps us.
So: I know I can't write a blog every night. Well, maybe I can. I know I can't write well enough. Well maybe I can. So I wrote one tonight. And maybe it's good enough. And maybe it's not. That doesn't matter. It's been written. And I move on.
2 comments:
A thought is harmless unless we believe it.
I find this compelling as well, but I'm having trouble fitting my existing data to it. I consider my default thought patterns (i.e. depressing ones) to be harmful because they upset me for no good reason. But I don't believe them, or believe they're likely. It's the worry that they're even possible that's the problem.
So the belief that they are even possible is such a thought--harmless until you believe it.
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