In one of our groups we were asked, what’s the difference between thinking and thoughts? Can we control either one?

Thoughts are automatic. They just show up. They are things. Thinking is an action. Things that show up without our choosing them aren’t under our control, therefore we can’t control, get rid of, or stop thoughts. Thinking, being an action, is something we can control. You’ve maybe heard about thoughts landing on your head like a bird, but it’s up to you whether it builds a nest there. It’s the same concept.

There were two exercises we tried at TK. The first exercise was to help us see that thoughts are inevitable. We were asked to not think about a specific item. It’s impossible. The mind works by addition, not subtraction, so trying not to think about something is impossible.  The other exercise involved seeing our thoughts come and go in order to get used the idea that thoughts show up without our consent and we can let them go without dwelling on them. We were instructed to picture sitting by a stream. We were to see each thought on a leaf floating in the water and notice as they came and went, soon replaced by another thought.

In an earlier post, I said that “understanding emotions ARE” is one vertebra in the backbone of therapy. Another is self-talk. There are thoughts coming into our minds all day, and we make choices about what to continue thinking on as this stream of chatter flows through. Of those choices, what we tell ourselves about ourselves is self-talk. It’s very enlightening to monitor your self-talk. Try it sometime – write down every thought you tell yourself about yourself.  If your self-talk is consistently negative, it’s time to change the recording to something positive.

This is a powerful illustration God gave me a few years ago…Picture a train depot with advertisements, announcements, a schedule, and some warnings hung on the walls. The depot personnel come around periodically to change the advertisements and the schedule. Sometimes they add a warning or remove an announcement. Now imagine this station as your mind, where every thought shows up and travels to every other area of your life.

• Are the posters outdated? Do they keep your mind occupied by the past?
• Are the warnings in line with the Bible, or are they about attaining wealth, doing as much as the next person, keeping your reputation intact?
• Are the advertisements comparing your life to someone else’s?
• Does the schedule take up the entire wall? Is the schedule etched into the wall and not open to God asking something else of us?

It was amazing to me how much I just cruised through life without considering my thoughts and how my choices to think on them affect my view of myself, of others, and of God.

I struggle with being critical – it’s the direction I gravitate. I’ve shared with our kids that we all need to beware of ANTs – automatic negative thoughts. Something happens and we automatically think we’re to blame. Or we automatically blame the other person. We automatically think the situation should be different. So much in the mind happens automatically!! It’s our job to slow it down and understand what’s happening in there. We need to take back managing the train station again!