Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Which Came First...

The chicken or the egg? The feeling or the thought? Now, that's an interesting question... which does come first? The feeling... or the thought?? I was reading a book the other week (Slowing Down to the Speed of Life) and they might actually have an indicator of solution. So... I want you to get really angry, yup, super-duper angry... How are you going to do it?? Well, odds are, you're going to think about something that makes you really angry... and then you'll be angry... So, which came first? The feeling or the thought?

Even in the moment that something happens to us... when things are very raw and very fresh... which comes first? The embarassment? Or the thought that "this is embarassing"... Good question... The point that the authors make in this book is this... Our feelings are like a red-flag for us, they are an indicator of where our thoughts are. If we are feeling uncomfortable thoughts... odds are that our thoughts are behind it all. They say that there are only two groups of feelings... comfortable and uncomfortable. But if we become aware of our thoughts... just that awareness allows us to step back, recognize the craziness of our thinking and shift into something else...

The basic idea is that there are two types of thoughts... processing/analytical and free-flow... When we are in the processing/analytical (which is favoured by our education system), we can spin our wheels and create a very big hole, going nowhere... Those endless circular thougths that get us nowhere. Free-flow thinking is different... it takes us beyond what we have known into some other space...

What to know more... read the book!!

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