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Originally Posted by TheFlyingMan  Mate that is a good answer and what I'm leaning towards as well.
I've been having these lingering thoughts that make me angry. Some include snippets of past insults, some are a week old, some are over a year old! When you say the cause is unconscious, do you suggest that we switch thoughts for these?
They seem to all come at once. For example, when I'm stressed out at work, these bad thoughts seem to all come, including these insults. They distract me from my work and make me grumpy sometimes.
The method you mentioned, letting it feel the anger/sadness, seems to work for what you call "appropriate" feelings - such as loss and so on. But for these thoughts, would you handle them in a different way? |
Hi TheFlyingMan,
I've come to realise that some emotions that we feel are necessarily healthy and appropriate, even nagative ones (ie, the grief example). But the majority of emotions we experience on a day to day basis may not be. We might react in an emotionally "inappropriate" way, such as what you describe above (these feelings don't serve you, as appropriate emotions do).
I didn't mean to suggest using the switching thoughts method ever - I agree with Nicketas - it is denial, and denial is "going unconscoius." However, applying the blanket Tony Robbins suggestion of action is taking an "ego-only" approach IMO. That will probably work, but it is a temporary solution that doesn't deal with the root unconscious causes of the disfunctional feelings.
My approach is a long-term one (well, it has been for me!). I began meditating a year ago, and as my awareness expanded, it gradually made conscious some of those disfunctional unconscious beliefs I had - which leads to the disfunctional feelings/reactions. Once you make these conscious, you see how bad they are for you, and naturally they fall away. It seems you can't do anything bad to yourself if you become totally conscious of it.
Meanwhile, when any bad feelings turn up in daily living, I become totaly aware of how they feel in my body, accept them, and by some strange paradox, they pass very quickly.
So, this is a very long term solution, but well worth it.