“Don’t believe everything you think.”
This little quote, on a pin badge my other half bought me for Christmas, has been sitting with me today.
It’s a powerful reminder that some thoughts we have don’t deserve our attention. It made me think of the late William James, the founder of a branch of psychology called pragmatism. He said one of the remarkable things about humans is the ability “to choose one thought over another.” We can disregard what isn’t useful.
That makes it sound easy. It really isn’t easy. But it isn’t impossible either.
The brain is an organ, just like the heart and the lungs. It’s affected by life experience in the same way as our other organs. The thinking part of our brain is there to serve us - to keep us alive and to help us make sense of the world - but we don’t need to believe every story it comes up with. We can take a step back and decide what we’re going to pay attention to, and what we’re going to agree with.
There’s a great little video “I call my brain Becky.” It’s a man talking about what happened to his thinking after he lost his son, and how he managed his thoughts. It’s worth a listen. You can find it with a quick google search.
The next time you get caught up in a cycle of thinking that brings you down, or restricts your life and relationships in some way, ask yourself: Is this thought true? Is it helpful? Could there be another way to think about this?
Our thoughts are powerful, but they’re not facts.