by Robert Wilkinson
Yesterday we covered how the desire mind is the source of negative thoughts and the difference between destructive thoughts which lead our lives into a ditch versus destructive thoughts which deconstruct our old reality and allow us to construct a newer, better view of reality. Today we’ll continue with how to transmute self-destructive thoughts through taking command of our mind.
It helps to remember that you are not your mind, you are not your feelings, and you are not your body. These are vehicles your consciousness occupies, but YOU are not limited to these vehicles. That’s why consciousness can always override physical, emotional, and mental habits any time we remember we can.
Ultimately, we’ve learned a lot of unhelpful attitudes, feelings, and ideas in the course of our lives. Some of it was because we were “going along to get along,” and adopted behaviors which we shouldn’t have. These must be unlearned. I have had to learn to reprogram many of my attitudes and responses in the course of my life, since the old ones weren’t effective and sometimes made things worse, never a good thing.
When I fell into confusion and began to generate unhelpful thoughts, I realized I wasn’t concentrating on solutions. When I tried to concentrate on solutions, I realized I didn’t have any and had defaulted to feeling badly about feeling badly. That’s why when we have negative attitude and self-destructive thoughts, we must step back and take an entirely new approach to what we think we’re seeing and other ways to respond.
Why are we negative? Why are we generating self-destructive behaviors? When we confront negativity and self-destructive tendencies, we have to transmute them toward our “enlightened self-interest,” and turn the destructive tendencies toward destroying that which is keeping us negative and self-destructive.
There is a time and place for destroying unhelpful behaviors, especially when we understand they have led or will lead to unfortunate consequences down the road. Then we must confront the thoughts and feelings which are self-destructive so we can choose to end those patterns. All we must do is face the motivating thought behind the feeling, and choose to redirect the thinking toward a different end.
I noted my mind usually defaulted to a critical pessimism and took a very narrow view of things. Of course that led me to seeing things as “either-or” which also perpetuated self-destructive thinking. I learned to detach from my negative take on things, and tried to begin to frame things as “both-and,” so that I could open to other possible responses.
When we open to other possible attitudes and responses, we open the door for the Higher Mind’s imagination to give us information from Divine Mind so we can step outside of mental attitudes set by rules and limits we never knew governed how we thought. Then as we practice receptivity to other possibilities, we open the door to our lower mind being fed information by our Higher Mind as it receives it from Divine Mind.
We are said to be eternally Atma-Buddhi-Manas, roughly translated as “Spirit-Soul-Higher Mind.” This Higher Triad is mirrored in the lower triad, or lower mind, feelings, and the body. Mind is where the Higher and the lower come together in us. Our Higher Mind, or where we attune with Divine Mind, is the densest part of our eternal Being and its abstractions and aspirations infuse our lower mind in ways we call imagination.
It is said that the Greater Divine Mind has three aspects from which all forms derive. These three qualities are known by many names, and they all embody 1) a Generative, Creative, Initiating quality; 2) a Preserving, Sustaining, Harmonizing quality; and 3) a Distributive, Fracturing, Transforming quality. That’s why each of us has a talent for generating, preserving, or transforming whatever our mind turns its attention to. There is no part of our existence which doesn’t involve these three qualities of Divine Mind.
So we learn how to generate, how to maintain, and how to release all things, all feelings, and all ideas since these are the outer manifestations of a three fold creative Cosmic Process by which all things manifest in our world. We learn to deal with it and ride its pulses throughout our lives from being stuck in negativity to riding the wave of eternal transformation.
We are born into this system, and as we grow up learn many unhelpful attitudes and feelings from others. Then as we grow in our understanding and fulfill lesser things, we get new ideas and feelings we hold on to while old ideas and feelings pass away. Always there is a process of new things showing up, sustainment for a while, then dissolution of the old, transforming into a new. That’s why too much attachment to any form brings us experiences which teach us how to let go.
When we were younger, many of us learned quite a few both obvious and subtle destructive mindsets and approaches because of the limitations, fears, and taboos of our family and cultural matrix. Our negative or self-destructive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors create experiences we must deal with. Eventually we figure out that there’s no gain in holding on to narrow negativity and destructive thinking.
That’s when the positive redirecting of our minds pays huge dividends, since those moments when we realize we need a new idea or a new approach is when we throw off the chains of mental slavery and claim our power to choose how we want to respond to life circumstances. The lesson is always about letting go of the lower attitudes and finding more productive, freeing and inclusive attitudes.
As we persist in stopping negative and self-destructive thoughts in the moment, we increase our power to do so in the future. By applying our self-discipline, we grow stronger and begin to integrate our personality, since our mind no longer goes off on unhelpful tangents, and begins to serve the need for us to be positive in our approach to our lives and purpose.
Because we were not raised with perfect knowledge nor were we in a perfect world with perfect people, we take many attitudes for granted. At key points, our childhood responses need to be changed into something more appropriate to our individualized consciousness as adults. Here radical compassion and forgiveness help, since from one point of view, we're all the blind leading the blind.
For example, there are times when we feel inconvenienced or bothered by something or someone intruding on our time or space. In my life, after I began to examine why I had an aggravation response to others intruding in harmless ways, I realized that life is for living, not being "inconvenienced." Over time it became easier for me not to “be aggravated” or “be inconvenienced” and just be as I needed to be in the moment without externalizing a destructive attitude.
Feeling annoyed, like feeling fear, is a useless response. It is merely an emotional prod to focus our attention on how to respond to that which annoys us. We learned these behaviors and responses, and must understand them from a larger angle of vision if we want to have some ability to choose how we want to play our life situations rather than be driven by conscious and unconscious urges.
Even when I realize I am annoyed, I try not to stay stuck in vectors one moment longer than I need to. And with practice over time, I now see there are things that once annoyed me that no longer bring forth that response. It helps to surrender as fast as we can to the Divine Will, regardless of the large and small changes it's putting us all through.
We do not need to stay stuck in difficult feelings, but we will until we choose to deal with them directly. In learning what causes these destructive mindsets to come forth we can target the root of many things that create 10,000 problems for us down the road.
Almost all negative self-destructive thoughts and feelings cover up our need to face the end of something that is no longer fulfilling. Being creatures of habit identifying with outer things, we don't like things to end. Even when they are painful, we still have a curious need to attach for a variety of reasons. However, rather than getting stuck in struggling with unhelpful patterns, we can recognize the truth that something has ended or needs to be changed into something more fulfilling for us.
Then we can choose cheerfulness and dispassion in turning away from self-destructive responses in the blink of a moment. Then if they reappear, it will be easier to remember that it's an echo of something that is no longer real, since we've already recognized the need to move on. The future always beckons to those who open their imagination to something higher, greater, and wider. It's all determined by your point of view.
We are always facing the need to let go of some things, secure some things, and generate some things. What fulfilled us as young adults will not fulfill us as mature adults. What evokes a positive or negative response gives us a lot of information about our subconscious desires, our unconscious thoughts, and offers a roadmap to positive inner change once we understand the adventure.
We are constantly stimulated by outer symbols of what we believe are good and important; these are the symbols we identify with until it’s time for some new symbols. Almost everything we hold important in this life is impermanent, and will pass away sooner or later. We just need to find the right attitude about the changes as we do our journey, since what we experience during the ride is more important than the forms we encounter along the way.
We are creators. We are preservers. We are destroyers. As we create, preserve and destroy the old, the new presents itself, which in its time will also pass. This helps us understand our “symbolic life,” our quest for meaning within the Great Mystery of existence.
Throughout the journey, we pick up and lay down the 10,000 things. We are consciousness in eternal growth, exploring countless experiences throughout infinity and eternity. After all the negativity is done, what we’re left with is the Divine Love, Wisdom, and Intelligence we always have been, are, and will be, along with the Great Mystery of things we may or may not never understand.
The reward of getting rid of negative and self-destructive thoughts is they no longer generate karmic patterns we’ll have to deal with in the future. Another reward is that as we withdraw power from negative responses, we are given power to shape positive responses in the future. We are never at the mercy of the lower self, and have the power to BE our Higher Self in the world on our terms.
And that’s a very good thing.© Copyright 2019 Robert Wilkinson
Thank you, Robert. With so much in our world that begs for a negative reaction these days, this understanding is key to sanity.
Posted by: Valerie BE | July 25, 2019 at 06:57 AM
Joy of hummingbird and loyalty of dog...
Posted by: sue | July 25, 2019 at 07:37 AM