What’s Happening Up There?

Do you ever notice your thought life? What sorts of thoughts are going through your head on any given day? Are they like white noise in the background? Or are they like a loud sports stadium full of fans from both teams? Do your thoughts feel like two teams fighting against each other? Or a bunch of kids playing tag? And the most important question is, in all of those thoughts, where are you?

I Think, Therefore I Am

Let’s say you just walked out of your front door to start your day. When you start walking to the train station, your thoughts start churning.  “I’m doing good on time. I just tracked the train and it doesn’t come for another 8 minutes. It’ll take me about 3 minutes to get there from where I am. Is it crowded? Will I get a seat? I hope I get a seat, I’m tired. Oh crap, there’s a baseball game today, I might not get a seat. I didn’t bring anything to read. Why didn’t I bring anything to read! I should have double-checked the game schedule for today. I was tired. I forgot. I shouldn’t have forgotten. Now I’m not going to get a seat on the train. This is gonna be a bad day and it’s all my fault.”

You get to the train station, and not only do you get there with enough time to stand for a couple of minutes before the train arrives, but when it does there’s an entire row of empty seats that you get to choose from! Just a minute ago, you were beating yourself up about what you felt you should be doing, and how bleak your day was going to be. You thought it, and therefore, it was the truth! Sound familiar?

Hello in There!

In The Untethered Soul, Michael A. Singer invites the reader to become more aware of thoughts happening within any given day. Just to pay attention to the nature of the thoughts. How sporadic and disjointed they are overall. And he explores the question, “If your thoughts were a person, would you take advice from them?”

Would you take advice from your thoughts about the train earlier, if they were a person? Someone that jumps to conclusions, thinks in extremes, and gives their opinion as if it were an unquestionable fact? In order to separate from the thoughts, Michael A. Singer invites readers to imagine yourself saying “hello!” over and over again. And you get to ask yourself the question, “Who is it that notices this thought in my head?” That can be a journey in of itself. Michael A. Singer takes a spiritual approach to a therapy concept in Acceptance Commitment Therapy called “Self as context.” When thinking of your self as context, you acknowledge your thoughts and feelings as experiences that your true self is having.

From Michael A. Singer’s point of view, your true self is consciousness. It is awareness. On the other hand, when you think of yourself as content, you see yourself as your thoughts and feelings. In this case, your awareness is tangled with your thoughts and your feelings. For example, if you have a self-judging thought like “I’m an idiot,” if you identify with your thoughts, then you believe your thought to be the truth. However, if you detangle from the thought, you can be aware of yourself having the awareness of having the thought “I’m an idiot.”

The Cinema of the Mind

Another way to look at this is to recall a time when you watched a movie that you felt very engaged in. You may get so engrossed in the film, that you forget everything that is happening around you. You feel immersed in the world that the film makers created. So immersed that you may laugh or cry at what is happening, because you feel deeply moved. It’s the same thing with thoughts and feelings. You can get so engaged in the thoughts your brain created, or the feelings your heart created, that you lose awareness of everything else happening in front of you. In these cases, you have an opportunity to notice yourself noticing thoughts and feelings. Like walking down the aisle of a television display at an electronics store. Just noticing all the different pictures happening and passing through them. Not getting engrossed with just one and losing sight of all the others.

When you untangle your awareness from your thoughts and feelings, you get to increase your capacity to handle discomfort. And that puts you more in the driver’s seat when it comes to making choices that feel authentic and healthy to you in your everyday life. Not necessarily driving the train mentioned above. But when you get on the train next time, if you forget your book, you get to be present and notice all the beautiful moments in front of you that you may have missed before.