The Power Of Thought Substitution - Dissecting The Wisdom

In this episode, Jeffrey and Mark circle back to the idea of unconscious manifestation and how if left unchecked, the mind tends to occupy itself by telling negative stories, opening the door for those negative emotions to manifest in our physical reality. Jeffrey presents the techniques of Thought Substitution and Though Replacement as a means to reframe those negative imaginings with something that feels better which will in turn produce a more favorable outcome.

Transcript

And welcome back to another episode of Dissecting the Wisdom of Shaltazar with my collaborator and good friend Mark Lane.

Welcome Mark.

Hi Jeffrey,

Thank you.

Yeah,

Yeah.

I just want to let you know that this is the 13th episode that you and I have done in this Dissecting the Wisdom of Shaltazar series,

And it has continued to evolve as all life has.

And I want to thank you for working with me on it.

I really enjoy it and appreciate it.

Oh,

Thank you.

No,

I enjoy it too.

It's something I look forward to every week,

And it's interesting how it's kind of taking on a life of its own and evolving,

You know,

In spite of us.

So it's good.

Yeah,

That's an interesting one,

Eh?

Evolving despite us,

Right.

So we've talked about that a few times,

Getting out of our own way and allowing the universe to direct our growth and evolution.

Right,

Right.

Right.

So have you got a topic for us today?

You know,

I do.

It's kind of an organic topic,

But I wanted to talk about negative internal dialogue and where it leads us and I think what it's doing to us as people.

And kind of the genesis of it was I've been spending a lot of time in my basement fixing things and finishing the lower level of the house out.

And it occurred to me that if I don't have a podcast on or if I'm not listening to something that's kind of occupying my mind while I'm doing this work,

That there's a dialogue going on in my head,

A conversation going on.

And so I started paying more attention to the conversations and it occurred to me that a lot of times the conversations are not necessarily positive or sometimes are downright negative,

Especially when it comes to other people.

It's like,

And I'm sure everybody does this,

But you tend to,

You know,

If there's a conflict or a problem or a person in your life that there's some sort of unsettled energy with,

You tend to have conversations with that person in your head.

And they kind of oftentimes turn into arguments and you are envisioning this kind of perhaps unpleasant conversation or this confrontational conversation or you're trying to get your point across and then you're envisioning this person pushing back and not accepting your point of view and trying to make their point.

And I guess it occurred to me that if our thoughts are manifesting in our reality,

Then we've got to kind of pay attention to those conversations and perhaps try to make them more positive.

Otherwise we're going to create these negative confrontations with these people in our lives that we probably don't really want to have negative conversations with.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I think what you're talking about or what I hear you talking about is becoming more conscious of our thoughts,

Words,

Deeds,

Actions.

And I think that is so important because I know Shelte D'Sire has made it quite clear that we are always creating whether we know it or not.

And so if we are allowing or permitting these negative and less than positive thoughts to come up,

We are putting out that vibration.

Now,

I don't want to scare the listeners.

It doesn't mean that today I have a negative thought and tomorrow calamity strikes.

It doesn't quite work that way.

There is some sort of algorithm in there.

But you're absolutely right.

And sometimes I wonder where do those thoughts come from?

I know that I am not an obsessive compulsive,

But my mind is.

And I don't know where it got that malady.

I don't know what happened.

But somehow in my 68 years,

My mind has become extremely obsessive compulsive.

When I get a thought,

You know,

And I choose to let it go because I've done some practice with letting go of thoughts,

Five minutes later,

The thought's there again.

I don't know if that's ever happened to you.

Yeah.

Well,

You know,

When you say that,

I almost wonder,

You know,

So we're both spiritual people or we're coming together to do a spiritual podcast and talk about these sorts of issues.

You know,

We've talked quite a bit about meditation and that letting go and stilling the mind,

Quieting the mind and being in the moment.

And that's becoming more and more a go-to modality,

At least for me,

Where.

.

.

Yeah.

May I interrupt and say necessity?

Yeah,

Right.

Becoming a frickin' necessity because if you don't,

It's brutal.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it seems like the more you do it,

The better you feel,

The better place you put yourself.

But I'm almost wondering if what we're experiencing in terms of these thoughts is the mind fighting for survival.

It's like it feels itself being marginalized and it's like,

Wait,

Hey,

What about me?

You know,

What about these thoughts I keep bringing you?

What's my purpose if you're going to marginalize me and push me out?

I don't know.

Maybe.

.

.

I get that,

And that makes sense to me,

But my interpretation of it is that without us knowing,

Somewhere in our past,

We gave that instruction or power over to the mind.

So I understand it may start to feel marginalized,

But when we were babies,

That mind wasn't very developed.

So somewhere in our personal history,

We chose to give the power over to the mind to be in control.

And certainly in Western civilization,

There is an honoring of the mind,

A respect of the mind we tend to hold in high esteem,

Those that are smart.

When I was going to school,

You know,

The higher the marks,

The smarter people were.

Of course,

You had to make fun of them if you weren't that smart.

But I believe what it was was a slow programming of giving the power over to the mind.

And I think what I hear you saying is that it's not easy to wrangle that power away once you've given it to the mind.

It's like programming,

Right?

I mean,

The mind is very much like a computer.

When you program the mind to,

You know,

Bring you the answers,

Try to figure things out,

Look at things logically in a very linear way,

It continues to repeat that over and over and over again.

I mean,

I think the reason my mind has become obsessive is because all of those years that I had a problem and I went to my mind and say,

OK,

Help me solve this,

Help me figure it out.

What am I going to do next?

And so I,

To a certain degree,

You know,

I agree with you that reversing that and taking that power away,

We are getting a resistance from that mind.

So we definitely have to look at a retraining,

A reconditioning,

You know,

A reprogramming of that mind.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's interesting that there's a speaker on Insight Timer called Sudhguru and he's lived in India and he has a following of live people,

You know,

The podcasts he records,

A lot of them seem to be live.

He's kind of an interesting character,

Funny wise,

And he talks often about the failure of the Western education system to truly educate people in a meaningful way that will allow them to live a whole life.

And that,

You know,

What you were saying about,

You know,

Being conditioned,

You know,

Our education system,

Especially here in the United States,

Is very much focused on that mind problem solving,

Accumulating facts and being able to regurgitate them and doing things in a very linear left brain logical way,

Almost to the complete and utter discount of intuition and heart,

Right?

And,

You know,

You and I have talked about this many times before.

I believe that everything we want in life is a feeling and we don't want to be in a partnership relationship.

We want the feeling that that partnership will give it.

We don't want money.

We want the feeling of that financial security or financial independence and we don't want the career.

We want to be able to do something that's meaningful.

And I think we've lost,

There's a big disconnect because everything we want is a feeling and yet we have given the power over to the brain,

To the mind to try and get it for us.

And that's where the frustration comes in because the mind will go out and get you the good job.

The mind will go out and get you the money.

The mind will go out and get you a partner.

And then you kind of get frustrated because it doesn't feel the way you think it was going to feel.

And so,

You know,

There it is.

We go back to the mind and say,

No,

Do it again,

Right?

I mean,

If the mind could talk,

You know,

Of course it's somewhat like a computer so it doesn't have that consciousness.

But,

You know,

It may be saying,

What the hell are you doing to me?

Why do you keep asking me this over and over again?

And I give you the answer.

So I really think,

And Shilte Zara has talked about this many times,

That we've got to get that balance back between the thinking and the feeling.

We've got to realize that there's more to life than that thinking left brain.

And I think that this is an opportunity at this time in our human history to put that back into balance.

And I would agree with that,

You know,

That guru on Insight Timer that the education system is pushing us too far to cultivating the left brain.

And we don't cultivate and honor the right brain.

I mean,

Think about it.

We don't honor the creatives.

We don't honor the artists,

The writers.

You're a writer.

People aren't saying,

Gee,

Mark,

That's such an amazing talent you have,

Right?

And so you have to go and get a day job so that you can do your writing and your creative ventures in some other way.

So I think it's really,

Really important.

Now,

Let's bring this all back to what Shilte Zara would be saying.

These thoughts that we are having,

These obsessive thoughts,

These repeating thoughts,

These negative thoughts,

Have associated with them a vibration and energy.

Shilte Zara says that feelings create.

And,

You know,

We could be saying,

Well,

If you're thinking,

You're not feeling.

But that's not really true,

Because when you are thinking those negative thoughts,

There is an associated feeling.

You're just not connected to it.

And so therefore,

We are creating unconsciously.

These negative thoughts are creating a feeling or a vibration that we're not even aware of.

And that's what's bringing us our reality.

Right.

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

And that kind of circles back to that internal dialogue,

Those stories you tell that you don't even realize and the conversations you're having in your head that you don't,

You're not necessarily even consciously aware of.

You know,

That's all creating too,

Also.

And,

You know,

It's unconscious creating.

And that seems dangerous and probably not what we want to do,

Right?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I,

You know,

I see all of the protesting and riots and infighting.

And,

You know,

Unfortunately,

The energy of that is not going to solve our problems.

I think I read or heard somewhere in Europe where they had a demonstration and everybody stood simply in silence.

And there was this massive number of people simply standing in silence.

And can you imagine if they had quieted their mind and had focused on peace and resolution and harmony,

How much more powerful that would be than violent protests?

Right.

Right.

Yeah.

I remember somebody saying once that the quickest way to make a problem worse is to pay attention to it.

Good point.

Good point.

Yeah.

So what would you recommend to our listeners as far as solving this dilemma of the negative or harmful inner dialogue?

Oh,

Wow.

That's a good question.

You brought it up.

You might as well tell everybody the answer,

Right?

It's my fault.

You know,

I go back to something from the Abraham Hicks recordings.

One of their mantras is reach for a better feeling thought.

It's in this is kind of what I've been doing with myself.

You know,

If I notice my if I notice I'm going off on and telling a negative or a unhappy story in my head,

I am trying to at least be become aware that I'm doing that.

Pay attention.

Right.

And kind of know what you're thinking,

Know what you're feeling,

And then turn that around.

So if I'm having a you know,

In my mind,

I'm having an argument with my daughter about her,

You know,

Picking up her room or doing her laundry instead of seeing that that are playing that movie where I mention it and she gets angry with me and pouts and complains that she doesn't have time to do it.

And you go down that kind of that negative that negative path where it's a confrontation instead of a conversation.

Rewind,

Take a step back and reframe it in a positive way.

I'm going to jokingly mention something to her about,

You know,

Maybe it's time to,

You know,

To make your bed and and,

You know,

Can I help you,

You know,

Somehow somehow turn that confrontational story into a collaborative positive story and feel feel the feeling of that instead.

100% 100%.

I'm a believer I had early on in my journey,

I came up with with two ways to get me out of that that snit of negative self talk.

And I'm sure you would agree that that one negative thought tends to lead to another one to another one.

So you kind of got to get out of that of that cycle.

And what I came up with was was something I call thought release,

Or thought substitution.

And what I found that thought release was okay.

It wasn't as effective because I wasn't at that stage of my evolution,

Where if I let go of the thought I would be okay with the space.

As the late Wayne Dyer called it the gap,

The gap between the thoughts,

The gap between the words.

If I had all of the years of practice of some of the Buddhist monks I probably would be a lot better at thought release.

And so I found thought substitution,

A much more practical solution for me and that's exactly what you're talking about is when the negative thought comes up.

If you can have some awareness as to the fact that that is a thought that doesn't serve you.

You can then practice coming up with a substitute thought that feels better and that's that Abraham Hicks philosophy of move to a higher vibrating emotion.

So have a look at a thought and then say okay I want to substitute it.

It has to be believable but I just want it to be a bit more positive.

And that's why I'm a big fan in tuning in to how you feel.

How does the thought feel?

If the thought feels dark and murky and onerous then it's a low vibrating thought and you want to move to something more high vibrating.

So try to come up with something that is a new thought.

I think it's important to have it somewhat believable but as long as it has a higher vibration than the thought you were at then I think you're heading in the right direction.

And the interesting and miraculous thing that I found is over the years of practicing this my initial thought is not always as negative as it used to be.

I've retrained my brain and the thought that comes up tends to be more trusting,

More positive,

More encouraging.

So we can retrain that computer in our mind to come up with better vibrating thoughts.

Yeah,

That's a great technique.

I'm going to put that into practice myself.

Yeah,

Thought substitution.

And eventually I think what I am finding is that I can move under certain circumstances to thought release.

That I'm able to release the thought and just stay in what Shaltazar would say,

The void or the nothingness.

Because Shaltazar says just beyond the nothingness lies great riches.

And that's where meditation comes in.

I don't know about you but I find meditation is a reset for my brain.

It's like if your computer is acting up or your smart phone is acting up.

Something I learned a long time ago is just turn it off and reboot it.

And the problem usually goes away.

Well the mind is the same way.

If you notice that you've got a lot of obsessive thoughts coming up then meditate for five or ten minutes and allows that mind reset.

And the pattern of those negative thoughts probably has been interrupted.

Doesn't mean they won't come back in a couple hours.

But at least you get a bit of a reprieve.

So if you could see meditation,

And again Insight Timer and all the other amazing apps out there are a great opportunity.

Sometimes it's only five minutes.

Five,

Seven minutes.

I really can't accept people's excuse saying I don't have time to meditate.

That's like I'm having trouble with my phone and it's not operating properly.

And someone says well turn it off and back on again.

It's like no,

No I might miss a call.

I can't turn it off.

Well in the meantime the call is garbled and you're not getting your text messages.

So turn off the phone and reset it.

Sit down and meditate for five to ten minutes.

The apps are a great way of doing it.

And you will reset the energy in your mind.

So to a certain degree meditation is that thought release if you're not good enough on your own.

But if you don't choose to meditate at least start practicing thought substitution.

It's amazing how you can retrain the inner dialogue in a lot of cases to be more positive.

Some mornings I wake up and I'm just ornery and I get in the shower and I start practicing thought substitution.

Oh this will change as soon as I have a shower I'll feel better.

I'm going to have some breakfast and meditate.

And sure enough that energy changes.

So we are very,

Very capable of shifting our own energy by being aware of our inner dialogue and shifting it.

Right.

And meditation is a braincation.

It's a little time off from the thinking and it just makes everything better.

Yeah.

It's that reset.

Yeah.

Hard to believe we're just about out of time Mark.

This one went really quickly and I love our new format of just free flow discussion and thank you for coming up with that idea.

Any final thoughts on inner dialogue?

No I think we beat this one to death.

I agree.

Indeed.

Right.

So we will practice what we preach.

We will just have a thought release.

We're just going to let it all go.

Thank you listeners for tuning in.

Thank you Mark for being an amazing partner in this and love and light to you all.

Thanks Jeffrey.

Take care Mark.

We'll see you next week.