Thoughts from the train

I was reading my book again this morning. It makes good bite size chunks on the train (any more than that and I would probably stop paying attention).

Today's point was that it's thinking that evokes feelings, not the other way round, no matter how much it feels like it. We think about things in a negative or positive way and that causes negative or positive feelings. Yes, it can feed a vicious cycle where feeling bad makes you more prone to bad thoughts, which leads to.... but it all starts with a thought. It's an angry thought that leads to angry feelings. It's remembering and thinking of bad things that have been done to you that provokes feelings of insecurity. Our feelings are a mirror of our thoughts. They are our thoughts though, not things imposed upon us. We may have got into ruts or trained to respond in certain ways but they are our thoughts and we can accept or dismiss them as we want.

He also made the point that thoughts aren't real. I struggled with this one. If my thoughts aren't real then what am I? I think though what it meant was that when we replay events in our head it's not the event we are really reacting to. It's our intepretation of them, how we are letting ourselves think about them. We could shrug it off or we could super-analyse, replay them again and again finding fault with ourselves. It's not a current real life event we are reacting to, its like reacting to a dream. A two minute argument with a loved one that is long gone becomes a constant monalogue in our head replaying it over and over and over again finding things we could have done differently or reasons why we can't fix it. It stops being the argument that makes us feel down, it's how we keep replaying it and dwelling on it.

It's a very simple concept and one that again keeps striking chords. It will be interesting to see how it comes to putting things into practice though!

I did some thinking about this (see, heh, I just had to...) in relation to being submissive. I am a very analytical person, and I've always wondered (in my having to find an answer to everything kind of way) if part of my appeal to submission is to stop thinking.... to give over, stop, just for a moment. That felt kind of selfish to me (me me me) and using someone else as a prop. I also suck at it! Heh, it's very rare for me to stop thinking... Now a new thought occurs to me. Not thinking, just responding, living in the moment is a good place to be as it's being completely with the person you are with and not the dozens of things you've been doing or the dozen you have to do. So, someone helping you achieve that place is a "good thing", and a great gift. It's not completely necessary though. Another effect of submission is a narrowing of focus not a complete stilling of thoughts. All those thoughts, feelings, all dwelling on the person you are serving and having to think of them and not yourself. Thinking outside your head. It is a very very very beautiful place.