THOUGHTS VS. THINKING
“Stop thinking and end your problems.”
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Thoughts are the energetic, mental raw materials from which we use to create everything in the world. We can’t experience anything without thought. It’s important to know that thoughts are a noun and aren’t something that we do, but something we have. A thought takes no e9ort or force on our end, and it is something that just happens. We also cannot control what thoughts pop into our minds. The source of thoughts comes from something that is beyond our minds — the Universe, if you will.
Thinking, on the other hand, is the act of thinking about our thoughts. This takes a significant amount of energy, e9ort, and willpower (which is a finite resource). Thinking is actively engaging with the thoughts in your mind. You don’t have to engage with each thought in your mind, but when you do, that is thinking.
Thinking is the root cause of all our psychological su9ering.
Now you might be wondering, where do positive thoughts fit into the picture? Positive thoughts, or thoughts that feel good, are not a result of thinking. They are, instead, generated by our natural state of peace, love, and joy. They are a byproduct of a state of being, not a state of thinking. We will go into depth about this in the next chapter.
For now, let’s do a quick thought experiment.
I’ll ask you a question and all you need to do is to be aware of what you’re experiencing, and we’ll review what happened after.
What is the dream amount of money you want to be making a year?
Pause here and wait for an answer to surface.
Give yourself about 30-60 seconds to think about your answer of how much money you want to be making in a year.
Don’t move on to the next step until you’ve had a decently sized train of thought about how much you want to make.
Now take that amount and multiply that by 5.
What do you think about this new dream goal for your income when we multiplied it by 5?
Take at least another 30-60 seconds to become aware of how you’re feeling when you think about that and see what other thinking comes up for you as you feel your emotions.
Don’t move on until you’ve done the above.
Okay, let’s bring it back in and review what happened.
After I asked the first question of what is the dream amount of money you want to be making per year, within a few seconds
an answer popped up in your mind. That is a thought. Notice how quickly and e9ortlessly that came to you.
After an answer popped into your mind, I asked you to think about your answer. What happened once I asked you to think about your answer?
If you’re like most people, you probably went on a wild rollercoaster once you began thinking about the thought.
You might have been thinking how there’s no way you can make that much, no one in your family is making that much money, you don’t know how to make that much, it’s stupid to want that much money or that it makes you greedy.
Notice how you felt when you were thinking about those thoughts.
Most likely it didn’t feel that great, but that is okay, and I’ll show you what you can do about it soon.
This is a prime example of thoughts versus thinking.
If I ask you a question, you will 100% have a thought that pops into your mind.
Thoughts are not inherently bad. Remember that they are the energetic mental raw materials from which we create in the world.
The moment we think about our thoughts is when we begin to get taken on an emotional rollercoaster. When we think about our thoughts, we begin to judge and criticize the thoughts and experience all sorts of internal emotional turmoil.
When I asked you how much you wanted to make, you had a thought about the amount. That thought was neutral and didn’t cause any emotional toil. In fact, you might have felt
expansive and excited. It was only when you began thinking about that thought of how much you wanted to make which is what caused the self-doubt, unworthiness, anxiety, anger, guilt, or any other emotion you may have experienced.
This is what I mean by thinking is the root of all of our su9ering. Having the initial thought of how much you wanted to make didn’t cause any su9ering until you began thinking about the thought of how much you wanted to make.
It is not necessary to think about our thoughts or to judge them. It does us no good to do so. We may think that thinking is helping us, but all it’s really doing is causing us to feel all of these negative, unwanted emotions and making us create reasons as to why we can’t do it or why we shouldn’t want it.
The only thing that was useful and helpful was the initial thought that popped into your mind when I first asked how much you wanted to make. All of the thinking that happened after was destructive and unhelpful.
Thoughts create. Thinking destroys.
The reason thinking destroys is because as soon as we begin to think about the thoughts, we cast our own limiting beliefs, judgements, criticisms, programming, and conditioning onto the thought, thinking of infinite reasons as to why we can’t do it and why we can’t have it.
Without thinking, we prevent all negative programming and judgements from tarnishing the initial thought of what you want to create.
If I asked you what are some ways you could make the amount of money you want, if you sat there long enough, you’ll
experience the same phenomenon of having random thoughts pop into your head of ways you could make it happen.
These are thoughts of creation. Thoughts are inherently infinite, expansive, and energetically positive. You’ll know you are having thoughts from the divine when you feel positive emotions, feel lighter, and alive.
As soon as you begin thinking about those thoughts of the ways you can make the money you want, you’ll immediately feel heavy, restricted, limited, along with a whole onslaught of negative emotions. This is how you’ll know if you’re thinking.
I use my feelings as an internal radar that tells me whether I’m getting direct downloads of thoughts from the Universe or if I’m in my head thinking about my thoughts.
You can only ever feel what you’re thinking, so feelings and emotions are like an intuitive internal dashboard which tells me if I’m thinking too much or not.
If I’m having a lot of negative emotions, I know that I’m thinking too much. This is another example of how we’re naturally built for success.
Below is a chart that compares Thinking vs. Thoughts to help you identify which one is which within your mind:
Thoughts vs. Thinking Chart
|
Attribute |
Thought |
Thinking |
|
Source |
Universe |
Ego |
|
Weight |
Light |
Heavy |
|
Energy |
Expansive |
Restrictive |
|
Attribute |
Thought |
Thinking |
|
Nature |
Infinite |
Limited |
|
Quality |
Creative |
Destructive |
|
Charge |
Positive |
Negative |
|
Essence |
Divine |
Mortal |
|
Feeling |
Alive |
Stressful |
|
Emotion |
Love |
Fear |
|
Belief |
Infinite Possibilities |
Confining |
|
Sense |
Wholeness |
Separateness |
|
Effort |
Effortless |
Laborious |
