Developing a nonjudgmental attitude

Befriending your distractions

A complementary way to develop acceptance is to be aware of your emotions in a spirit of friendly curiosity. So in doing the above exercise - as you locate the emotion in the body and sense its characteristics - you can take a kindly interest in it. You can say words like “It’s okay. Let me feel this. It’s okay to feel this.” In this way we can replace the aversion we have to the unpleasant feeling with a more creative response that won’t lead to further unpleasant reactions. In other words we’re breaking the vicious cycle by not feeling bad about feeling bad.

Then there’s the whole area of the thoughts. When you feel bad, your mind generates thoughts that are conditioned by the unpleasant feeling. These thoughts (”Here we go again. I don’t want to feel like this. I can’t stand it. If I feel like this no one will like me. I don’t think anyone likes me anyway”) are what make us feel bad about feeling bad. We take a molehill (or at least a hill) and make it into a mountain.

It’s very useful indeed to learn to stand back from our thoughts as well as our emotions. We can recognize that our thoughts are just thoughts, and not reality. When you notice thoughts arising, you can let go of the stream of thought. Thoughts only keep going as long as we put energy into this, so by letting go of the thought we’re actually withdrawing energy from it and stopping it from being perpetuated.

Labeling thoughts as thoughts can be useful. When we notice ourselves thinking we can just say the word “thinking” quietly to ourselves. When we name our experience we again create a small gap that gives us a sense of freedom.

You can adopt a skeptical attitude about your thoughts. Our thoughts often lie to us, and we can feel empowered by choosing not to automatically believe them. Instead of believing thoughts like “No one will want to be with me if I feel as bad as this” we can simply be aware of this as a thought.

Comments

Comment from Trish
Time: August 30, 2007, 1:22 pm

Isn’t it nice how a few words such as your article, make such good sense and have helped me on the road to freeing myself.

thank you

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