We all have a little voice inside our heads. Most of us call what this voice says our thoughts. Our thoughts dictate many of our decisions. This voice rambles on most of the day to us about all matters relevant and irrelevant to our lives. Sometimes when we get conflicted about different scenarios our voice gets in an argument with itself. There's usually one side telling us what might be better and the other side telling us to do the worse, perhaps easier thing. Our thoughts can either help or hinder us. But how do we stop ourselves in our tracks and make better decisions? How do we ultimately change our thoughts so that the little voice hinders us less often and helps us more?
First, we need to realise that we are not in fact our thoughts. We are separate from them. A brilliant book called, 'The untethered soul' by Michael A. Singer explains this in depth. Since we are separate to them we can never fully control them. We need to realise that they will come up and we don't need to listen to them.
Second, we can help direct our thoughts to a more positive place by posing better questions to them. For instance, lets say we're watching a series on Netflix, the next one starts to come on automatically but as we notice this a thought comes in our heads, 'oh just one more, I'm really tired and I can't be bothered to do x,y and z.' Another thought comes into our heads and tells us we should probably do x, y and z' eventually we will choose either way. But if we engage this situation with a better question we can find a way to satisfy all our current needs. One simple question we could ask is, 'is this the best use of my current time?' ( a question I learnt from Brendon Burchard) 'will I feel more or less refreshed after one more episode?'
Sometimes we do need to switch ourselves off from work-mode and actually take time to relax. This can be through tv, walking, reading, so many different things. But if we are just distracted and feeding an addictive cycle, perhaps it's already midnight and we know we have to get up at 7am for work. A better use of time would definitely be to get some sleep rather than watching that next episode. By asking ourselves more direct, better questions we can start to engage more with the little voice and not just fall into the trap of the first hindering thought.
Another way, we can update this voice is to flip our thoughts. Lets say our thoughts are telling us that, 'no-one understands you.' Not a very helpful thought but we can flip it and try to engage with that. For example, 'could 1 person out of the 7.8 billion people on Earth possibly understand you?' 'maybe everyone understands you but you don't understand that yet?' These are more positive, helpful thoughts that we can achieve by just flipping the initial thought.
And lastly, like in The Good Place(an incredible show), when they try to become better people there are two main ways they achieve doing so. One: they ask for help. Two: they read moral philosophy books. There are so many free available resources in the modern world that if we truly want to update our thoughts and become better all we have to do is take a little time to research it, read more, watch some youtube videos, go to the library etc. Or alternatively find someone out of the 7.8 billion people on the planet to help you on your journey. There is bound to be someone who can help you if you reach out.
By doing any or all of the above practices, we can begin to more automatically come to thinking better and in the long run update that little voice.
Wishing you all a more positive outlook and luck. I hope you find a way to update your own thoughts.
Much Love
Naomi Leila Xxx
