Content

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

~ Marcus Aurelius

Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.

~  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

You are the gatekeeper!

Not like Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters. You are the gatekeeper for something real: the content of your consciousness.

Are you aware of your thoughts at any given moment? What goes through your head in the course of any given day? How much control do you have over your thoughts?

Let’s address these questions one by one.

If we can be aware of what we are thinking, what we are feeling—then we can begin to influence the content and direction of our thoughts and feelings. But many people struggle with the separation of the person who’s thinking, and the person who observes the thinker. Much has been written about this dichotomy over the last couple of millennia; ultimately, the ability to observe our thoughts can lead to having awareness of and influence over what goes in and out of our consciousness.

Being aware of the progression of our thoughts can be even harder. It’s one thing to pay attention to our thoughts in a given moment, but it’s more challenging to be aware of the flow of our thoughts over time. Can we control or even be aware of the direction of our thoughts? It’s not easy, but if we can we can recognize and promote the good ones and red-flag or nix the bad, then we can get closer to having the useful, healthy and happy flow of thoughts that we want in our consciousness.

So what do we do when we have thoughts that we don’t want? Thoughts that are harmful?

First, we need to understand that unpleasant thoughts aren’t necessarily undesirable thoughts. We all have issues we need to process and problems we need to solve. If we don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge and address the bad stuff that happens, we will never be able to get past it. But those thoughts can either be helpful, or they can be harmful.

When we feel sad, we have to acknowledge and process that feeling. That means allowing that sadness to occupy our thoughts (see Sad). We have to allow negative feelings into our consciousness, so we can work through them and eventually make room for the positive feelings. The happy thoughts will always be happier if we’ve given the sad thoughts the attention they need.

BUT—we can’t allow these thought to take up permanent residence. We are only giving them a temporary work visa in our minds, so that they can do what they came for, and then be gone.

So how can we control our thoughts—or even harder—our feelings?

In my view, we can’t control our feelings. But if we can control our thoughts, we can better understand our feelings and not let them control us.

Whenever I’m having a tough time, I try to go back to a zero-sum game. I empty my consciousness, and try to keep it that way for a while. Then, as time goes on, I stay very aware of what comes and goes through my conscious thought. With negative thoughts, I try to fully understand and process the thoughts. If my thoughts are helpful, useful and/or happy, I embrace them and try to build momentum in those directions.

When our minds drift toward things like worry, regret, self-pity, or anxiety, we should never try to just force them out. We should acknowledge them, determine where they came from, decide if there is anything helpful about them, and then let them drift on by. It’s when our thoughts take root in our consciousness that the problems arise.

Your consciousness is an empty box. With what will you fill it?