Having a safe place to think isn’t necessarily just a physical spot. The place you spend your time managing your thoughts is your own mind. Is your mind a safe enough place that you would allow your best friend to move in? Who do you share your deepest thoughts with? If the answer is nobody, it’s time for some mind control techniques.
We start out most days making lists in our heads. What we have to do, where we have to go, what we will eat; the list sounds like a sacred litany. There are great reasons to make lists. They are satisfying to check off, they keep tasks in mind, and they can be part of a useful system. Unless they become overwhelming, spill out in your brain and make a mess. Messy thoughts are not usually positive. Messy minds can be toxic to your health. You would never let your best friend get poisoned.
Adopting the proper hazmat procedures includes suiting up. You can’t eliminate sloppy thoughts until you corral them, so you must catch them as they occur and hold them. This permits you to inspect them and investigate their origin and truth. Be an explorer of your own thoughts. The simple question to ask is about their veracity. Ask the thought, is this true? If false, you can continue to look at it without emotion and see if you can cut off the supply line.
If true, you can hold it and experience what it is trying to tell you. Dissecting the origin of a genuine thought is as beneficial as finding how the false information is created. No thoughts should be tossed away without review.
Managing your thoughts is a daily business – 24/7/365. Producing a safe environment means not thinking untrue thoughts and not thinking negative thoughts about yourself that are not true either. You wouldn’t speak those same thoughts to your dog. You have to be kinder and more true to yourself than the best of your friends, human or animal.
What was the last untrue thought you had that you examined? Where did it come from? Use your best friend as a criteria when you mentally speak to yourself – would you say these same words to your BFF?
