But, aren't my thoughts real?

Questioning the reality of our thoughts, in conversation.

A: If my thoughts aren't real, what's causing the anxiety in the pit of my stomach? It feels very real!

L: Is it anxiety? What is it? What's there, really? It's just a sensation, isn't it? A twisting, turning sensation. Nerve endings fizzing up and talking to each other.

What is 'anxiety'? It's just a word. A word we have made up to describe a sensation in the body based on the external stimuli we think is causing it. How does the external stimuli cause anxiety? How does it create anxiety in the body?

Think about the mechanics of that for a second. How does something outside of you cause something to happen inside of you? How does the anxiety get in there?

A: Well, I guess I see something or I think something I don't like or want, and that makes me anxious.

L: So, you see, and then you think? So, really, the anxiety is in response not to the external stimuli but to the thought you don't like?

A: I suppose so, yes.

L: And where does the thought come from?

A: My mind?

L: Where in the mind?

A: I don't know.

L: Do you remember creating it, that thought? Do you remember putting it together? Thinking 'ah! I know what thought I should think next!'

A: No.

L: No ... it just pops into your head, right? You don't know where it came from or how it got there, and yet here it is making you feel anxious. You don't want to feel anxious, do you?

A: No!

L: So, let that thought go. If you didn't think it up, if you don't know where it came from or how it got there, why do you listen to it? Why do you take it seriously? It's just a thought. You'll have another one come along any second now. And who knows where that one came from either!

Don't you see? Thoughts aren't anything to worry about. We can't control them. It doesn't appear that we create them either. They come and go of their own volition. You could say they're completely independent of us.

You are the one observing thought; that means you get to choose which ones - if any - you pay attention to.

A: But if I stop paying attention to my thoughts, what am I left with? How will I function in the world?

L: Well, that's a good question. If we stop listening to thought, if we stop looking to our minds, might we just ... look? Might we just see life, out there - the present moment - as it really is? How might we function differently when we see life in full, rather than fractured through a jumble of thoughts running through our mind?

Oh, and that phrase 'running through our mind' - we had the truth all along! Thoughts run through. Their very nature is to pass through. In and out. But only if we let them.

Somewhere along the way, we learned this idea that maybe we should do something with these thoughts. That some were welcome and some were not; some were good and some were bad. As if we had any say in which ones visited us!

So now we spend a lot of time worrying about the thoughts in our mind and what the quality of these thoughts say about us. We go to seminars, workshops and TED talks to try to figure out how to get better thoughts. We pay lots of money for trainings on how to control our thoughts. When, really, there's nothing to control!

Thoughts aren't any-thing. They're neither good nor bad. They just are. They come and they go. They're only 'bad' in so much as we take them to mean something and we act and react in response. We make them real.

It's like the Observer Effect in Quantum Physics. Energy is a wave (no-thing) until it's observed and it becomes form (some-thing).

Thoughts are like waves: they're not real until we look at them and give them form. We make thoughts real, it's not the other way around.

A: OK.

L: Try sharing a thought with someone without giving it form.

You can't, can you?

It's not a material thing! It's formless!

We're human. To be human is to have thoughts. But we're also conscious. We're aware. Unlike any other creature on the planet, we are gifted with conscious awareness of ourselves and the power of imagination. We are effectively magicians! We have powers that no other creature has. Isn't that mind-blowing?!

So, now you have a choice. Do you choose to believe every thought running through your mind and feel all the disturbance that comes with it, OR do you choose to let thoughts come and go and get on with your life regardless?

A: I'd much prefer the latter!

L: Well, that is in your power to do so! Go and experiment with seeing your thoughts come and go this week. Just observe and see what happens within you when you don't get hooked by them, when you don't give them form. What opens up for you as a result?

Who do you discover yourself to be without these thoughts?