You clicked on this post. Your eyes consumed the title. Your hand moved and clicked the mouse. What happened in between? Something happened. You judged it worthy of a click. The “in between”, the space between stimulus and response, controls everything in your life. Yet, most of us know little about how we can utilise it. Let’s explore some ways we can.
Meditate
Meditation is the best way to increase the mental gap between registering that something has happened (an “impression” in Stoic lingo) and your response to it. By focussing on something like a mantra or your breath, you allow yourself the mental space to see your thoughts float by.
Seeing just one thought come and go is likely not something you experience, unless you practice mindfulness. Your thoughts control your life. Allowing yourself to recognise a thought when it comes is the first step to controlling your life.
Why do you need more space? You need more time to decide how you will respond. Unlike all other species (that we know of) we are able to think about our thoughts. However, very few of us do. Most of us rely on our automatic response. We have relinquished control of our lives.
Thinking about our thoughts, making judgements about them, is where we can gain, or lose, control of ourselves, and therefore our lives. Meditation gives us the space maintain control, but what do we do with that space?
Stoicism
“It is not things that trouble us, but our judgements of them”
Epictetus (Slave and Stoic teacher)
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is the most scientifically valid form of psychotherapy there is. It is based on the ancient Hellenistic philosophy, Stoicism. Stoicism advocates living in accordance with Nature. Rationality being the nature of a human being. Rationality is uniquely human trait.
When’s the last time you’ve seen someone be rationally angry? Rationally frustrated?
“ARGH! LATE AGAIN!! I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” If you’re saying “late again” followed by “I can’t believe it”, you would definitely benefit from some Meditation and Stoicism. We do ourselves harm without realising it.
The most fundamental way you can change your judgements of things is to change your expectations. Your expectations are within your circle of control, asserts the Stoic.
After some expectation management you’ll be saying something like: “Late again? I’m lucky I don’t have to walk.”
While it may be simple to change our judgements, it doesn’t make it easy. It takes time and a consistent effort to remould our brain. “If you want anything good, get it from yourself”
Why?
Why do you judge things the way you do? There must be a reason. A major event? A series of minor events? Something someone said when you were young?
Questioning beliefs to the core with “why”, also known as the Socratic method, allows you to acknowledge how you got where you are. This is the first step to changing. That’s not to say you should take the same way out either. I’m not telling you to win back your slot machine losses by putting it all on black.
Let’s say you think having 20 likes on your latest instagram post is bad.
Why do you think that? Will having more likes make your relationship with your friends better? Will having more likes make you a better person? Will having more likes make you healthier? No, no and no.
Do you think having more instagram likes will make you happier? Yes. Why? Because it will. Why? Because I want more likes. Why? Because I want to be popular. Why? Because I want to be famous. Why? Because famous people are rich. Why do you want to be rich? Because rich people are happy? So what you really want is to be happy, and not more instagram likes? Instagram likes will make me happy. Why? I want to feel approved. Why not just approve of yourself? Because I don’t. Why not? Because others don’t.
Oh the cycles we get ourselves into! The above was my attempt at examining what I expect will go through millions of teenagers’ minds (yes, not just girls, guys freak about this shit too) after reading this. It’s only after digging deep, being persistent with yourself (or another), that the irrationality of what you usually think can be put on trial.
After you have unmasked your beliefs, you can more readily combat them. In the example above, you can start by remembering that your thoughts control your emotions, not the amount of likes you have. So what you’re not popular? You have more time to read and improve as a person.
There are three techniques you can use to regain control of your thoughts. What do you do to maintain control of your life?
