Basic mechanics of thinking

First: it’s very hard to write this without sounding like an arrogant prick, but I see so much misinformation about what thinking is, I’ll take a shot.

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I go running. I get tired and ‘those’ thoughts creep into my head. Do I stop running or not, and why? Do I push through mentally, or not?

The answer is: sometimes you stop, and sometimes you don’t. This dance we have with ourselves is called consciousness. It’s that fine art of living, of knowing exactly when to do something and when not to do something.

A simple measurement is this: did you get seriously injured because you pushed through mentally? Then you still have a lot to learn. I have a friend who is mentally very strong, ran a lot, and pushed through the whole time and got injured every other month. He didn’t understand the dance, the fine line. He, in a sense, undervalued his own thoughts.

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What is a thought?

Some thoughts (so not all forms of thinking) are a reflection of the inner state of your whole body. This is very important: thoughts have an unbelievable, valuable function within a body. For some reason, in a lot of traditions, people seem to undervalue thoughts and kind of ridicule them. There is nothing egocentrical about thinking that your thoughts are important – they really are.

If your whole body is in a poor condition, the tone of all your thoughts changes. I have been in phases in my life where I isolated myself too much, didn’t work out, took poor care of my own body, and lacked social connections. So what happened? The tone of my thoughts became more troubled, darker, and the same thoughts kept coming back over and over again. The thing with this is that thoughts themselves are hardly ever the problem. They reflect back the inner state of your whole body.

This means that if your thoughts become darker and darker, this actually matters. You have to seriously investigate this and fix this. This can be anything: your food, your social connections, whether you get enough challenge in life, maybe you are overdoing the same things too much, I don’t know. But don’t be afraid of the thought itself. Thinking works fine, most of the time.

The hard part, and I think this goes wrong in psychiatric diagnoses a lot, is that it works backwards too

Let’s say you have had the idea in your head from a young age that you are worthless. Maybe you had a poor upbringing, maybe you are a part of a minority. This is like a little idea in your head. A little idea in a big body.

The problem with those little ideas is that you actually start acting on them with your whole body. If you think you are worthless, chances of you trying new things become slimmer. It’s easier to stay at home, safe, reconfirming what you already believe about yourself. So in that sense, your whole body is a reflection of the idea you have about yourself. This is where creation is about. Some people craft themselves beautifully in the idea they have about themselves. So if you have the idea that you are a beautiful human being from a young age, you kind of become that later on, left or right. I find this hard to explain; it has nothing to do with arrogance. It’s like a woman who dresses perfectly according to the day. Or somebody who has a home in perfect sync with their inner state.

The problem with a lot of psychiatric diseases is that they are a long-term reflection of what people themselves believe to be (!!!). You have that little thought about yourself → you act on that with your whole body → you spiral into psychiatry. This takes years.

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So:

• Thoughts work on a two-way street. If you have the idea that you are worthless from a young age, you easily kind of grow into that person.
• Some thoughts reflect back the state of your whole body.
• I overcame a lot of things. Believe me, anything is possible.