Are you one of us who “thinks too much?” Are you constantly going over and over in your mind the reasons you should, or shouldn’t feel or think as you do? Is your thinking full of foregone conclusions? In other words, when you think about what you might do, how you might be, or how you may feel in the future, do you find a very narrow window of possibility, a window that is dirty with should and should not? More simply put, do you feel trapped in your present circumstances without many options?
I’m here to tell you that things are not always as they appear. Or we might say that you can’t always believe what you think. And this is especially true in depression. The kind of repetitive, getting nowhere thinking that is quite common in depression is called rumination. Studies have shown that it is actually counter-productive. It actually perpetuates depression.
Now it may be a really disturbing proposition that you can’t trust your thoughts. But here’s something you may not have thought of: who is now thinking, “I can’t trust my thoughts?” That’s a good question. Well it’s you of course, or some part of you, and what you are doing now is thinking about thinking. We call it metacognition. It is the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes.
That is what we are doing now, examining our thought processes. In the previous post I described a process by which we can define success in terms of what we think is realistically possible, in the moment, around exercise. The example was that you decide to get some exercise because you know that in the past it has made you feel better, and so you automatically think that you have to go to the pool and swim a hundred laps or some such lofty goal given that you feel horribly depressed. And then you think, “I can’t possibly do that” and then automatically feel like a failure and it starts this whole self deprecating thought process that just makes you feel worse. You buy into, “I’m a loser.”
I suggested that we can actually choose another story, one that redefines success as a brisk walk around the neighborhood. And you said, ( funny I’m having this one-sided hypothetical conversation with you isn’t it? Just play along.) - you said, “No, swimming a hundred laps is exercise. Not walking around the block - big deal!” And I said, “Really, why?” You were stumped. You just don’t remember, trust me.
I am making light of a process in which we solidify past thought into present being that is totally out of sync with what we actually need in the moment. Why would swimming a hundred laps be such a certain thing? Well maybe when you were 19 that is what you did for exercise and you felt really good about yourself, really strong in yourself, so good and strong in fact, that this became the standard to which you held yourself, and amazingly, still do. Seems unreal, but trust me, this kind of thing happens all the time. This is exercise because in your mind this is what is going to reproduce that good and strong feeling. Problem is, your forty, out of shape and depressed.
Now this is an exaggerated hypothetical (or not), example of the unconscious process of our mind forming reality. We hang on to our preconceived notions without questioning them and we interpret present circumstance through a prism of accumulated past experience. We have primed ourselves to see things in certain ways. As you might imagine, this can be quite problematic. We just have these beliefs and don’t even know how they came to be. They just are. If you don’t believe me, just notice how many snap judgments you make in a day. And then question them. Notice how a circumstance will occur and you automatically have an opinion about it that you take very seriously. But if you pause for a moment and ask yourself, “is this true?” - you will most often find that you cannot verify the truth of your thoughts. Seriously, try it for a day.
So if you can’t trust your thoughts, what can you trust? Excellent question. You can trust present moment experience. BUT, you have to be present in the moment to see things as they are. John Teasdale, a leading cognitive researcher and an author of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression, calls it “metacognitive insight.” It is the wisdom that is revealed beneath the automatic and seemingly incessant thought stream. Yes, wisdom inherent to the human organism. Obviously, one must verify this for themselves. Mindfulness is a way.
We live in our minds, which are full of fears, hopes, expectations and dreams - full of past interpretations solidified into unexamined beliefs about ourselves and our world. We follow the fear and hope based wanderings of our minds believing them to be factual representations of our reality. Most often, they are not. This discrepancy is the cause of our suffering individually and collectively.
It takes practice to be in the present moment. This is the essence of mindfulness practice. It is the cultivation of present moment awareness. It is awareness without judgment to what is. Through this altogether different way of being we come to experience the wisdom of, and trust in, our present moment experience.
And what may be in this present moment, is that you feel depressed and quite pessimistic about the future. If so, I encourage you to drop the story of depression and just relate to it in the body. You can still use your mind, but only as a means of exploration of the present moment in your body, to ascertain what it feels like in this moment and each successive moment. When your mind wonders back to possible causes, meanings or consequences of your present state, simply let them go and return to sensations in the body. Is there fatigue? Blaahness? Confusion? Or, you don’t even have to put it into words. Just feel. Let go even, of the word ‘depression,’ because it has a whole constellation of meanings for you. Just return again and again to sensation in the body.
I invite you to do this now for just a few minutes. This is mindfulness of the body. Return to what is felt in the body, letting go of interpretation and judgment. These will arise, which is quite natural. Thinking is what the mind does. We can choose whether to follow along or not. The instruction is to keep returning to the sensation in your body. What do you have to lose except that which you probably know you could do without?
Devin Liles
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It was nice to have a hypothetical conversation with you that I didn't actually have.
cheers,
Forest