Years ago, I attended a memorial service for a prominent businessperson. It was a bleak and subdued atmosphere, and I noticed a dishevelled guest paying his tribute in a narrow and extraordinarily humble voice. With a choked voice, he roughly translated his sentiments verbally, saying that he was an office boy 20 years back when his boss picked him, educated him, and supported him.
“For a long time, I was a hopeless guy, no good to him or others. I always failed miserably, even in trivial works. But he never gave up.”
“Anyone could support success, but having faith in failure required special power, he added. He said, with tears in his eyes, that he had lost his best friend.”
It is the power of compassion and encouragement, in the form of persistent positive inputs, that imbibes the most powerful emotion in humans.
Identifying Thoughts Leads to Negative Emotions
The origin of thoughts is a grey area that, after so much scientific research, we still do not comprehend properly. Ordinarily, we exhibit certain powers, like the power of thinking, volition or will, reasoning and so on. Our thinking is the same as our thoughts, and there is no existence of the mind except for that. All these are common powers of the mind, but we do not regard them as wonderful or life-changing, nevertheless marvellous their origin may be. We consider our thoughts as a natural property, but whenever we find any expression in an extraordinary manner of the same power, we look at it with awe.
Some people think circumstances influence our thoughts. Some people also feel that our thoughts influence our circumstances. In some sense, both are true. Sometimes, in some extreme situations, we cannot control our emotions because our thoughts are influenced by our external factors too much, so we start identifying with them unconsciously. In cognitive behavioural psychology, counsellors help people with extreme negative emotions by identifying those thoughts as objects in some sense. Just because certain forceful negative thoughts come, which is not necessarily you and not necessarily helpful. In a highly negative state of mind, many foreign thought processes invade the cognitive space and then manifest themselves as an unquestioning identity. And if the circumstances revivify and nourish the immediate reality of a person, these thoughts will pose a permanent reality.
There is a scientifically proven experiment to show how frequency can influence positive and negative thoughts. You will see that when the frequency matches, vibrations start to occur. This principle is evident throughout the universe. The frequency at which you operate now attracts things similar to yours. In the brain, many waves are created – Theta, Beta, Gamma – each with different frequencies. When you are upset, the brain's frequency is different than when you are happy. By being alert and consciously changing the brain's content from negative to positive, you can transform your reality.
Life’s Meaning & Thought Process
We all, in some part of our lives, experience tragedy. It is indisputable. Tragedy gives life its negative connotation. In some extreme situations, people who suffer often say life is meaningless. It is not exactly what they mean. They mean that life is misery, but there is nothing transcendent about it that will obliterate that misery. This is why when we see such nihilistic people, we immediately recognise them because they assume the role of victims. This is an easy way out when you play the victim role and abandon responsibility without feeling guilty.
Our brain circuitry produces positive emotions that people generally like, but they are only activated when we follow a goal that we value. If you do not have any goal that you value, you do not activate your positive emotions. The brain circuitry system is dopaminergic, which means that when you reach steps on your path, it will activate both the exploratory system and the incentive reward system.
There are two kinds of positive emotions – one is associated with satiation, and another one is associated with the incentive reward system. The problem with the consummatory reward system is that it destroys the value network. For example, when you feel like eating good food, it operates under a timeframe, so when it ends, you are stuck with it. You need to think about what to do next. However, the incentive reward system generates positive emotions incrementally. It keeps you moving forward, and you feel less pain. If you are a goal-directed enthusiast, your internal pain systems are, in some sense, shut off.
Relation Between Stress and Self-Consciousness
Negative emotions generally come during extreme crises. One way to deal with a crisis is to shorten your timeframe. It may happen, and you cannot think about next month. Maybe you cannot think about next week or even such a severe crisis next morning. You cut your timeframe until you can cope with it. In our dark times, we must look for hopeful moments and meditate on some beautiful moments that we have experienced in our lives. If you narrow down your timeframe, you will still be grateful for what you have or whatever things make you a good person.
Calculating the average stress level is like comparing the occurrences that baffle you to those you comprehend. The goal is to maintain a low ratio. You want to understand a similar situation that happened to you in the past so that if the situation arises in the future, you know how to deal with it. It is important to be honest with your past and create a straightforward story with your future. So, if you know where these negative emotions are going, that will reduce your baseline level of neuroticism.
It is often noticed that people who are under extreme stress are highly self-conscious. Self-consciousness is tightly associated with misery. It is like a loop; when you are depressed, you only focus on your narrow shelves, and it will aggravate your misery. You cannot escape from this trap consciously because if you start thinking less about yourself, you end up thinking more about yourself. What you can do is learn how to put other people at ease and what you can do for other people. That takes that self-conscious stress off, and then your negative emotion level falls.
Prepare Your Mind To Attract The Life You Want
Much of what is happening inside you is not immediately accessible to your awareness. This means you can formulate ideas or act out in this world for reasons that you do not understand. It also means your memory is represented in one way but cannot be understood in multiple ways. We have an independent memory system for actions, an independent memory system for imagination, which uses images and a semantic memory system that articulates knowledge. It is not true that the content of all of those systems is equivalent. Our unconscious mind is a cauldron of content, the part of the psyche that is not available for introspection.
Many psychoanalysts make this habit of writing their dreams. You can say that your dreams make you watch your actions, and also, these dreams watch other people act. There are often weird dramas in your dreams, and there is certainly information in it, but you cannot figure it out. So, the dreams contain information that you are consciously aware of. The content of your dream contains information, which is the encoding behaviour of your unconscious thoughts, which are accumulated through your memory systems.
Meditation – A Powerful Practice To Get Awareness Of Unconscious Thoughts
As ordinary human beings, we are not aware of the source of our thoughts, so to say, how thoughts are generated, where they are generated and the true meaning of our mind. However, it is possible to be aware of our thoughts so that we can at least be conscious of our negative and positive thoughts. We are what we think, so if we are conditioned to specific types of thoughts at a certain point in time, it attracts similar kinds of circumstances in our lives. This is not any metaphysical mumbo jumbo but a fact because the resultant of all our thoughts leads to our destiny.
I am not just the present but also the potential me that could be manifested in future. Now, the potential me is governed by my thoughts, which are quite illusive.
In a very general sense, meditation is understood as a deep concentration on any object. Concentration is an indispensable part of our existence. We see, we hear, and we successfully act in this world through concentration, though the degrees are different. Concentration is the way to gain knowledge of a subject. Through concentration, the mind acquires the quality of the lens. The power of concentration is directly proportional to the power of the lens. We can penetrate deep into it and understand the subject clearly. Through concentration, secrets of the inner and outer world are revealed to us. If we concentrate on a particular subject, we can understand the internal secret of it. That’s the beauty of it!
Concentration is not meditation but just a part of the process. When concentration becomes effortless and continuous, it takes the form of meditation. Mind waves are stopped and fixed on the object of concentration. During concentration, we face the same amount of difficulty. The only difference is that in the preliminary stage of concentration, it’s difficult to attach, and during meditation, it’s difficult to detach.
Recognize and understand your thoughts to train your subconscious mind. Meditation is the only process that makes you aware of the thought process. Observe your thoughts without controlling them. If they are negative, let them come. Over time, you will see that the negativity loses its energy and becomes peaceful. This is not magic; it happens inside your body. You must transcend your mind by seeing it. The energy you waste observing others should be directed inward.
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