We all may want to have only those thoughts and feelings that we want and like, and it would be simply great to have only our desired thoughts and eliminate the rest! Everyone would just love it, if each feeling or thought that comes to their mind fell within their definition of good and normal. It would be the psychological perfection for anyone!
When you vigilantly try not to think about some thing or person, you unconsciously force the part of the brain to be on guard for that specific thought. Keeping your thoughts there, even subconsciously, saves them and keeps them alive, and sometimes these thoughts come out of the prison and blow up in our active thoughts. Most probably it happens when you are under stress or exhausted.
We only know about the small part of thoughts that goes on in our mind and only a little part of our unconscious thoughts is under our control. Most of our thinking efforts continue to move on subconsciously. At a time, only 1 or 2 of these countless thoughts can possibly come into our consciousness. Accidental actions and slips of the tongue are some of the examples of the unfiltered subconscious life of your mind.
In simple words, we don’t choose our feelings or our thoughts consciously; we just become aware of them. When you try not to think about something, it is almost confirmed that the same thing will pop in your consciousness. The good news is, you are not alone facing this situation and feeling that way, says Harvard University psychologist Daniel Wegner, author of White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts: Suppression, Obsession, and the Psychology of Mental Control. His research proved that trying not to think about someone or something almost confirms that we’ll think about it.
It may seem contradictory, but in reality, it makes sense. When you avoid some thought, your brain works to keep that thought away, but at the same time, the other part of the brain keeps checking to ensure that the job is being done correctly. Unintentionally, this checking process puts attention towards the undesirable thoughts, and makes you more susceptible to the ideas you are escaping from.
The interfering and disturbing thoughts you may undergo during the day or at bedtime, shows the distressing fact that numerous functions of our mind are not under our conscious control. Whether we keep proper control over our thoughts is a crucial consideration of free will. Even our thoughtful choices and judgments are not completely under control. Our consciousness only controls the start and the end of the objective, but hands over the implementation process to the unconscious mental process.
Now, perhaps you have concluded that you cannot completely control your thoughts and feelings. But you don’t have to worry about it, as you are not alone, none of us can control our thoughts completely. The realisation that you can’t actually control your thoughts, can leave you feeling hollow and weird. The perception that your thoughts don’t belong to you or you can’t control them, can actually guide you towards a healthier, happier, and more aware way of life.
By learning that, you cannot control your thoughts, you can let them grow and when they arise, just see them from a different perspective. This is the exact meaning of mindfulness i.e. experiencing our feelings and thoughts with more precision and clarity instead of accepting them as outs without any question; therefore you can choose which one to trail and identify yourselves only with those!
* The author is a consultant in Public Relations and Personality Types. Instagram: @Tipsbyhalahill