Don’t Believe Everything You Think

March 3rd, 2010
By Ker Cleary, MA, Contemplative Psychotherapy Topic Expert Contributor

Click here to contact Ker and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

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My favorite bumper sticker: Don’t Believe Everything You Think.

We are such experts in how horrible we are, what losers we are, how much we should suffer. We can tell anyone, and frequently tell ourselves, how we have failed, how we have wasted our lives, amounted to nothing. This may or may not be so. But it is only part of the story. We disregard our own grace and beauty when we are focused on having yelled at someone we love, or bounced a check, or not met our own or another’s expectations. We forget that we mean well. We somehow ignore the generosity we displayed that same day. We discount any accomplishment, any love we gave out, any breath of relief we breathed into the world.

We are, in fact, deeply loveable. We are, in fact, fundamentally compassionate. We are, at the heart of it, unshakably good. This is known as Buddha nature, and we all have it, believe it or not. Just because we can’t always see this or acknowledge it doesn’t mean it’s not true. Try an experiment for a while. A day, a week, a month. Try looking for evidence that you’re already who you wish to be. You want to be successful? Note your successes, every day. You want to be beautiful? Find the beauty hiding there. You want to be kind? It’s there. It is being expressed. Find it. Seek out the respect, the love, the compassion, the good life you have, the good person you already are.

We find what we look for, and that becomes the story of our self in the world and how the world is. In truth, we create the world, every moment, in our own minds. We interpret, filter, ignore, grasp or reject every moment of experience we have. This is how our minds work, and it is okay. If we simply watch the thoughts as they stream by, without any effort to chase them or any preference about the content, things are fine. (This is known as meditation.) But we have conditioned ourselves to perceive the worst in ourselves and others, and this creates huge, unnecessary suffering. At the very least, it is inaccurate.

What we believe to be true is not necessarily true, and rarely the complete picture. It may be true that someone is looking in our direction with a fixed expression on their face. What we do not know is what is going on in their mind, whether they are actually seeing us, angry at us, or so deep in thought about something else they are not even here. We don’t know. We can’t know, unless we ask, which we hardly ever do. (Go ahead and ask; 99% of the time you’ll be wrong.)

Studies have compared people who consider themselves lucky with people who consider themselves unlucky. In one study, the “lucky” people found money that had been placed on the ground where they were told to walk. The “unluckies” missed the money. They never had that kind of luck, they believed, and so – they didn’t! In another study the researcher taught people how to become luckier. What does that tell us? We have a choice.

I am not suggesting that you make any Effort to Become Different. In fact, I am encouraging you to be Exactly As You Are. The only change might be where you put your attention. Just as when we learn a new vocabulary word or get a new pair of shoes or a certain kind of car – suddenly our new thing is everywhere! I am not saying, “Try this, you’ll feel better!” I am suggesting that what we yearn for has been there all along. If we activate our natural curiosity, and suspend our usual habits of belief, we might find out that things are different than we thought. Because our minds can think anything, and usually do.

When we stretch our bodies and think, “My muscles are so tight!” we experience tension. When we focus on our muscles stretching (which is simultaneously the case), we experience relaxation and ease. We go wherever we place our attention. The key in jumping hurdles is to look beyond the hurdle, not at it. If we look at a hurdle, we run into it. We can choose where to look. If we look at our shortcomings and regrets, that is where we go. If we focus on our Buddha nature, that is, inevitably, where we’ll end up.

 

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©Copyright 2010 by Ker Cleary, MA, therapist in Eugene, OR. All Rights Reserved.

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