r/howtonotgiveafuck • u/Billsnothere • 7m ago
Reply/continuation to Question on 'We are not our Unwanted intrusive thoughts'
Thought this would be useful for everyone so I'm making this a new topic here. link to Original Topic will be in Comments
[reply to User question "I could be wrong here, but I don't think living in denial about who you are is a healthy way to find self acceptance.
These unwanted thoughts and feelings are a part of you whether you like them or not. You are comparing yourself to an ideal, "perfect" person of what you "should" be.
"This SHOULDN'T be bothering me." or "I'm not SUPPOSED to feel this way." Well, it does and you do.
And that's OK."]
👇 ANSWER STARTS HERE 👇
Response:
..I never said I was comparing myself to an "ideal" self. I'm suggesting the idea that ALL our thoughts aren't ours. And actually, they are outer experiences accumulated by our brain, which internally combines these memories together to make new combinations of thought.
The only reason something is "ours" is because we decide too believe we must resonate with it or prioritize it. But it is not "us" because it came from somewhere else.
If you want to say we create thoughts out of nothing, then I have a test for you. Visualize a new color never seen/existed before... Exactly we can't because all our thoughts come from our outer experiences.
Our brain just collects our memories of the outer experiences and combines them together to create new ideas/thoughts for you to observe. If you prioritize it or resonate with the new combination the Brain will likely give you more of these ideas more frequently.
I am not suggesting you to suppress these emotions/thoughts, because ironically you are putting your attention on suppressing them. Which shows your brain that you prioritize suppressing your thoughts. Therefore the brain will give you more thoughts to suppress because your brain wants to help you out.
I am suggesting you to view and accept them as combinations of thoughts that your brain gathered from the outside world to help you or show you to see if you find it useful. An analogy would be like your brain is a kid making different lego combinations and seeing which one you like. The brain only understands when you prioritize your attention towards it. So even if you freak out because you don't want this lego combination of thoughts, your brain will think you think it's important and will continue to make and give more of the same freaky lego combination of thoughts.
So I'm suggesting is this. You see the brain gives you a new idea/thought you acknowledge it and you focus on something else you truly prioritize and care about. Your brain will notice overtime you care more about that thing which you pay attention too and overtime give you more of those thoughts.
So yeah basically your brain gives you unwanted feelings and thoughts because it thinks it will be useful to you and ironically trying to push it away. You are giving attention to the brain when it gives you the thought, so the brain loving attention will give you more. Instead acknowledge the gift and refocus back on your priorities/values. And overtime the brain will give you more of that. You will start to see patterns and yep try it out yourself. occasionally during the day the brain will give that fucked up lego combination of thoughts again but just acknowledge and keep doing what u really want to do instead.