We have looked at Defusion, using a metaphor, as an exercise to get a perspective on emotions and feelings. Thoughts though are a bit more difficult to get a handle on, as they may be “covered” by emotions. If it is hard to get different perspective regarding thought, or if this avenue seems blocked, we don’t get sufficient focus to have mindfulness.

I prefer the word witness, (position), rather than mindfulness, because that is the philosophy inherent within the spiritual practices I have used for many years, since leaving India after my ten years as a monk.

With this witness position, we take a stance of being essentially a conscious being whose true nature, (when realised), is aligned with the cosmic consciousness. (It’s really identical, this Individual Soul and the Cosmic one. a though is a bit of a leap to digest this at this point).

The body/mind, which continues as this ego- based human identity is merely an add-on, though perhaps 95% of humans would not see this. Without experiencing transcendence of the human condition, I would say almost everyone would need to start their Therapeutic Journey to Self-Realisation from the beginning of the steps.  In my experience there are points where I have been temporarily “granted” a sight or vision of the end stage the journey. This seemed to be an encouragement to continue with hope.

Without even glimpses of the Self-Realised state, we might give up. The lack of awareness of the true nature of the soul spirit, conscious connection, doesn’t give us the impetus to move forward. This is where, in the spiritual journey, people have turned to gurus who have projected out some of their power aura mentally, or even and “physically” transmitted it – person to person. I did this search for the enlightened being in India, and describe this period in my books such as English-Man, Beggar-Man, Holy-Man.

Getting back to sorting out some of our emotions

We need to target the thought processed involved. This is needed in order to achieve the equilibrium, where mindfulness or the witness state can be entered into, and useful or positive thinking process engaged in place. We need to modify at least negative thinking, rumination, poor self-esteem thoughts, or even catastrophising thoughts. Then there is progress on the journey to Self-Realisation. I acknowledge that many will use therapy to feel or be mentally and psychologically “well”. This book is a bit different then, and probably radically different, due to the propounded sought after outcome or goal.

You can write down thoughts and emotions emerging from defusion exercises. This is an aid to making these more concretely available for observation, and then they will then become more clear. You are then able to go into them and decide to do something about them when you’re in the present moment, in your mindfulness space, and not stuck in the past or future. A reminder here about stop step back, observe. Is needed in order to see what is really going on. Include also what you think is going on, even if untrue. It’s what the thoughts, feelings say is happening to you. Do this in order to look at reactions that go from an emotion to a thought. It can be other way around, where thoughts lead to emotions, but we don’t so much go there, for the sake of this exercise.

We should however take a moment to check out the thoughts versus emotions direction flow, and what thought consist of. Thoughts can appear to be derived from some low mood, grief, or sadness, and thoughts can also feed the sadness and low mood. So thoughts also flow to emotions.

Thought appears in our mind, and can be described in neuro-chemical/electrical activity terms. This is about the business that goes on between the neurons in the brain, and the flow of these “energies’. Then we start to look at things happening in the gaps between the neurons. Here are the serotonin, dopamine and other neurotransmitters, which can be investigated in terms of their functionality or “levels” in a particular person’s brain.

There are though no tests to diagnose serotonin symptoms as a diagnostic criteria for depression. Blood levels of neurotransmitters can be measured. However, these do not represent the levels of neurotransmitters in the nervous system itself. If the brain is not being your friend at this level with so-called “low serotonin” you might then get to be prescribed medication, to “make things better”. For holistic sanity, putting it very simply, the medical perspective needs to be accounted for as it is intertwined with therapeutic perspectives. There seems to be a case that spiritual endeavors should also be cognisant of related clinical physical and mental issues.

Now with this therapy approach, going now into thought processes, we want to get engaged with what we thinking about, and what we think is true, which we hold as belief. (Even if untrue). Cognitive Behavioural Therapy suggests that our thoughts, emotions, body sensations, and behavior are all connected, and that what we think and do affects the way we feel.

We may have deep levels of negative thoughts such as: I am bad. I am useless. Or I will never succeed. Maybe this is a belief held deep down. Somewhere along the line though we might find out what happened to drive this believable thought to where is sits now. What, where, and when are questions to ask. Is it internal or was it of an external cause. We need to work that one out a little bit first, just to put the negative believable thoughts into context. So it’s more than just words in the brain, and it’s more than just thoughts, emotions in isolation from Life and the Universe. There is a complex interaction to be explored here, and this is where our journey to Self-Realistaion goes off at tangent to conventional therapy.. There’s a lot of angles that generally are not inspected or perused.

Here we add.

Who am I?

What am I?

What’s my purpose in life?

Otherwise we may be seeking a human goal of general mental and physical well-being, which is not where we are heading in this book!

The thing about going into the witness state or meditative state is that its gives a perspective that we are more than the body/mind. This is usually proposed as a spiritual endeavour which makes it “different or special”. Should it be so?  Why is it is not seen as an ordinary experience?

In a very simplified view: We are driven by how we experience events, then emotions arise. and then thoughts. This can lead to issues with sadness, grief or anxiety. Now we’re not trying to get rid of any of this seemingly automated train of brain behavior. It’s what the brain does. We just want to get balanced. We just want to get on with our business of finding a way to Self Realisation, and to do this, we need some stability. Some ability to prevent this brain being a terrible obstacle. It’s terrible, because negative thoughts about our self and life can escalate. We know where that could lead.

We need some understanding of our thoughts and emotions, and we need some control beyond the idea that we are just are going to be normal human beings going about business. Outcomes of or mental/emotional life then are sometimes good or sometimes bad. More than getting into equilibrium we want to stop being distracted so much by life, so that the witness state can predominate. We want to be able to sit more firmly in the present moment and in the mindfulness position.

Negative thoughts are such as: I am a bad person. I’m a loser. I will never have a career. I will never have a good intimate relationship, etc., etc. If they go on and on repetitively, then they becomes ruminations, because it’s the thought going over and over, stopping you from sleeping or getting on with other things. Then you start to have even more anxiety and low mood. So it’s a thought without a purpose and should go in the bin, except that generally you can’t just do that. We need to balance out these thoughts just enough so we can move forward in our Journey. They will go in the bin automatically when we move into the Higher Levels. (To be explained further).

To balance our thoughts in this exercise the focus is on finding out and declaring the most negative thought about yourself that you have.

To be continued with the exercise directions.…. .