{"id":47612,"date":"2022-08-02T12:08:05","date_gmt":"2022-08-02T12:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/?p=47612"},"modified":"2022-08-02T12:08:13","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T12:08:13","slug":"thoughts-are-just-the-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/2022\/08\/02\/thoughts-are-just-the-setup\/","title":{"rendered":"Thoughts are just the setup."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You can\u2019t solve a thought.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what I told a client this morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’re in the earlier stages of looking at life from a broader, lighter perspective, and our conversations are riddled with anxious, angry, and frustrated questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like always.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yeah but if I look back on my past and how that\u2019ll never come back, there\u2019s real pain there, a real feeling of missing, a deeply felt, painful realization of time slipping away, and real unhappiness and melancholy, so how do I fix that!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And how about mourning the parent who died a couple of years ago, is that nothing but thought?!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Logical questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’ve had and I’ve heard thousands of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be hard to find a balance here, especially at the beginning of this exploration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distinction between realistic and true can take some time to settle in and make sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At first, many people go from left to right, the favorite movement of the mind, and can\u2019t immediately see the benefits of a more relaxed relationship with our experiences, without making it into a really rigid, cold, and robotic dogma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Manipulating thoughts is not the solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stopping your thoughts is impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rearranging that mental mess is an absolute waste of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not believing your thoughts, forever and ever, is not really an option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also not necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There’s no need to blame thoughts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoughts are amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They create that thing we call \u2018life\u2019, and \u2018the world\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They’re what distinguishes us from everything else in the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have them, we need them, and we can learn to appreciate them in a new way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without taking them too seriously, in a natural, effortless fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what it\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So talking about thoughts and how they come alive within us and how they fuck us up and what to do about it, is not the endgame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s merely the setup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoughts are what open up the connection to consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that connection, that recognition, is the only thing that really matters, and the only thing that will keep expanding and liberating the person we believe to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no need to spend the rest of your life analyzing what the mind serves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because as long as you fight your thoughts, hate your thoughts, obey your thoughts, or try to push them away or numb them out, they still have some (apparent) power over you, and you can play that game into oblivion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s crucial, what\u2019s essential, is not working on your thinking, but becoming aware of everything that\u2019s so compelling, all those experiences, and then be only that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be that awareness, and nothing else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not forever, per se, but at least for a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe even just a flash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you feel that deepest connection, you\u2019ll simply know, just like you simply know everything that\u2019s really important and true, and that will take the journey to a whole new level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll still reflect on the past and still feel sad for everything that\u2019s gone in the story, because the story continues and you\u2019re part of it and I have no clue what life would be like without it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being human is not a curse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a possibility to experience the biggest relief in the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

—<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo by @priscilladupreez, for Unsplash)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can\u2019t solve a thought. That\u2019s what I told a client this morning. They’re in the earlier stages of looking at life from a broader, lighter perspective, and our conversations are riddled with anxious, angry, and frustrated questions. Like always. \u2018Yeah but if I look back on my past and how that\u2019ll never come back, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"categories":[99,102,97,96,117,100,116,113,107,103,112],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47612"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47612"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47614,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47612\/revisions\/47614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marnix.nl\/homepage\/welkom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}