You Are Not Your Thoughts

We never stop thinking; however, where we focus our attention is what really matters. We get carried away by the storytelling of the untamed mind. We let it run our lives & define who we are. Our thoughts often get us in more trouble than we realize. After this episode, you will understand your mind better, how it can take over your life & how your true self can be in charge again. Your thoughts don’t have to define your reality, & you can quiet the storyteller.

Transcript

Welcome to Living Simply,

A guide to mindful living and mindful parenting with your host,

Dr.

Gina.

Hello,

Everyone,

And welcome back to Living Simply with Dr.

Gina Madrigano.

My name is Ben Barber.

Dr.

Gina,

What are we talking about today?

Today we're talking about how you're not your thoughts.

So we're going to focus on our thoughts today because they have such a huge impact on our lives.

But I am my thoughts.

I think my thoughts.

Do I not think my thoughts?

Your brain thinks your thoughts,

Yes.

Okay.

There's two.

Yeah,

There's no,

No,

You're not far off.

There's two of you in there.

Right.

Right.

It's okay.

So you said there's the thinking you.

Right.

That brain,

That computer.

And then there's the observing you.

So the you that can notice you thinking.

This reminds me of Eckhart Tolle.

Totally.

Yeah.

When he said,

I can't stand myself.

Yeah,

I can't live with myself anymore.

Well,

Who is the me that I can't live with?

Yep.

And who is myself?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's what we're going to focus on today.

Yeah.

Please,

Please explain more in detail and I'll and I'll stop talking for a minute.

I keep cutting you off.

No,

No,

I keep derailing the show.

So it's fine.

We're only two minutes in and I've I've already derailed it enough.

Well,

Our brain is an organ,

Right?

We have a heart that pumps blood all day.

Our kidneys filter our blood.

Our brain just besides doing other function,

Other functions is a thinking machine.

So it pumps out thoughts all day.

The number varies,

Right?

They say 60 to 80 thousand thoughts a day.

But on average,

That's one point two thoughts per second.

Supposedly 10 percent are useful.

So six thousand out of the 60 thousand are useful.

And the rest is basically the same tape playing over and over again.

The same stories,

The same background noise.

So your background noise is different from mine.

My tapes are different from yours.

But of all those thoughts,

Only a select few are really useful.

But as humans in the developed world,

We pay attention to all our thoughts.

And that's where depression,

Anxiety comes in.

We have a thought.

We believe it.

We assume I thought it,

Therefore it's true.

Same with self-esteem.

I think I'm ugly.

I think I'm stupid.

That's a thought.

And if I have low self-esteem,

I'm going to believe that thought.

So one big part we want to work on is noticing our thoughts.

So first to notice our style of thinking.

If you're pessimistic,

You'll have a kind of background noise,

Optimistic,

Critical.

If you're doomsday or whatever your thinking machine does,

You have your own style.

So you want to be able to notice what kind of thinking goes on in that head of mine.

And you want to be able to discern,

Is this thought useful?

Do I need to pay attention to it or do I just let it go?

But we really get caught up with our thoughts and we get fused with them.

So in therapy,

Part of the ACT approach is called diffusion.

So we want to put some distance between that thought and us so that thought has less power over us.

So those thoughts run our lives.

We're on autopilot.

We don't even realize how many thoughts go through our mind and how much these thoughts guide our actions,

Our moods,

Till it's too late.

You notice you're having a panic attack,

But you don't notice all the thoughts before that that led to the panic attack.

You just said something that I'd like for you to clarify.

What is the ACT approach?

Acceptance and commitment therapy.

It's the third wave in psychology.

CBT was super popular.

It's another approach to psychotherapy,

Which is based.

.

.

It's a bit of a combination of behavioral,

Mindfulness,

Acceptance.

So it's a different psychological approach to treatment than CBT.

CBT focuses on the thoughts a lot,

Reframing the thoughts,

Debating with the thoughts.

What's great about ACT is it's the act of putting a distance with our thoughts,

Letting them go.

It's value-based therapy.

It's a whole approach to therapy that's been studied for over 20 years.

ACT.

But we say ACT.

Thank you for the clarification on that.

You're welcome.

Okay.

So,

It also makes me think about meditation,

Right?

Because one of the first things that you learn when you're starting to learn meditation is the blue sky method,

Right?

Your thoughts are clouds and there's always blue sky above it and the clouds may come and go or cars driving on the street.

They come and you can see them and just acknowledge them and let them go.

But I also think that there's this big.

.

.

So I think meditation has been the strongest tool that I've personally had for learning that I am not my thoughts and that I can let them come and go.

And that's really been a powerful thing for me.

So is there something to that?

Is there something to this meditation thing?

Well,

Yeah,

A lot of people think the goal of meditation is to relax.

But really the goal of meditation is to observe your thoughts.

And it gives you insight into your thoughts,

Right?

You get to observe your thoughts and some people like to label them,

Oh,

That's a judgment,

That's fearful thoughts.

It gives you a lot of insight into what's going on in your mind.

And it allows you for a moment.

It's an exercise of focused attention where you don't get caught up with your thoughts.

So it's basically exercise for the brain.

And the more.

.

.

You know,

Some clients will go,

Oh,

This meditation didn't work.

I kept having all these thoughts,

Having to come back 100 times.

And I'm like,

Well,

That's awesome.

That means it's like you did 100 reps at the gym instead of 20.

So for 100 times you let the thought go.

So you develop more neural pathways to develop that ability in your waking hours where you're living your life to notice the thoughts and let them go.

So meditation is good exercise for the brain to allow you to be more mindful and present and be able to catch yourself when you're not present and you're off with your thoughts and the ability to let them go even in a moment of crisis.

But people tend to want to practice the exercise when they're in crisis.

And that's the worst time.

You don't learn to swim when you're drowning.

And the side effect sometimes is relaxation,

But it's not the goal of meditation.

The goal of meditation is to learn to tame the storyteller in that head of yours and to wake us up and not be sleepwalking,

To get us out of autopilot.

So an example could be.

.

.

I'll tell a client,

Go for a walk.

It'll be good for you.

It'll reduce stress.

But if you're walking and thinking of all your problems,

The walk will not be enjoyable.

So you'll start feeling a state related to your thoughts.

So when people think their reality or they are their thoughts is because it's no different than if you watch a movie and you think your life is the movie.

No,

You're on the couch.

Yes,

You get caught up with the emotion,

The music,

But you still know it's a movie.

Well,

When we're caught up in that movie in our heads,

We actually think it's true.

So if,

For example,

Like I was saying,

If a person,

A girl,

You'll see beautiful models who think,

Oh,

I'm too fat or my nose is ugly.

What happens if they believe that thought?

They feel depressed,

They are disgusted with themselves.

And then what's going to happen?

Then they're going to chase a plastic surgeon.

Make me feel better.

So if you believe your thoughts,

It's going to lead to behaviors that are consequential to that thought versus if you're like,

No,

That's not true or not even it's not true.

It's not useful.

I'm going to let it go,

Because if I start believing that thought,

I'm going to get down on myself.

I'm going to stay home alone or if I'm anorexic,

I'm going to starve myself.

So when we believe our thoughts,

It affects our state,

Our state of mind,

Our mood,

Our affect.

And we want to put a bit of a distance so we can again use discernment.

Is this reality or not?

Is it just a story I'm making up in my mind?

So there are so many times when,

Because I deal with anxiety and PTSD and I have for a long time.

And the stories that we tell ourselves and the intrusive thoughts that start small and then you don't let the cloud go by,

Right?

And that's the issue for me at least with anxiety and when it becomes,

When it can go like bigger and snowball,

Is that you latch on to this thought.

And it's funny because like you said,

There's 60,

000 thoughts that you have a day.

The ones that you choose to latch on to matter so much and can send you into,

Obviously mental health issues aside,

That can send anybody into anxiety and anybody into all of these different things,

Right?

Yeah.

And if you don't mind me using you as an example.

Go ahead.

You were hospitalized.

You almost died.

Remember the last,

I don't know if it was a pandemic or an epidemic.

So you would have PTSD and anxiety around the current pandemic.

So that thought is not irrational.

And it is true that you're more vulnerable and could be in danger.

So you could,

So then we can never control the initial thought,

The feelings,

They just show up.

We cannot control that.

What we can control is how we react to that.

So it,

And it doesn't matter if the thought is true or not.

I always tell my clients,

Think is it useful if I follow that thought?

Because like I said,

Over one thought per second,

You can quickly downward spiral.

In five minutes,

Imagine how many thoughts you have.

That's 60 times five.

You have a time to have a panic attack.

So what do you do is you shift your attention or you go into problem solving.

So your example,

You could be frozen by fear.

Oh my gosh,

Am I going to get sick?

Or what do I do to protect myself?

And that's empowering,

Right?

So then you do all the health measures necessary so you won't end up in the hospital.

So the initial thought is useful because it triggers,

Okay,

I need to,

Two choices.

I go down the path,

Oh my God,

It could happen again.

I could be in the hospital and blah,

Blah.

Now I have a panic attack.

Or how do I transform this first thought into something useful?

Okay,

I need safety measures.

I need to do,

Implement this,

This,

This.

I need to stay healthy.

I need to avoid blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And that's empowering because that's in your control.

You won't do risky behaviors.

So some level of fear is actually healthy.

Not all fear is bad.

So okay,

I had this initial fear.

What do I do with it?

Do I go down panic attack or do I transform the fear by choosing where I place my thoughts?

So that's,

I use that because it's a legitimate fear.

It's not in your imagination versus someone who's totally gorgeous,

Beautiful,

And they're like,

I'm fat and ugly.

That's clearly a self-esteem thing.

It's not the truth and we need to refocus.

That's a different way.

So it's using that discernment and how do I transform and where do I place my attention?

So you're basically choosing your thoughts.

Like I said,

You can't control the initial ones,

But you can control where you're going to go with it.

Yeah.

Yeah,

Absolutely.

I think that that reminds me of like some of the things that people have told me throughout the years when they've given me advice on this is,

You know,

Check your surroundings.

Like what are five things that you can see,

That you can smell,

That you can touch,

That you can actually physically put your hand out and touch something.

And those seem to be very clearly like the point of that is to get your brain to focus on another thought for a minute,

Right?

And it grounds you,

Right?

You're back in this moment.

One of the things,

Because last year around this time,

I was having some pretty bad anxiety and I was told to do some,

I probably am going to get this wrong,

Some somatic meditations and therapy where you're fixating on a body part,

Right?

And so when your anxiety is like based on your,

Whatever it may be,

You know,

Your arm and you feel like there's pain there or whatever,

Can you focus on your,

You know,

Can you find a spot in your body that feels completely fine and then you focus all your energy there and then you let it sit in the energy of the part that hurts and you just,

And you don't fight it.

You just let it sit there and then you toggle your mind back and forth until your,

And I could be,

Again,

I'm not the doctor here,

But the idea behind this,

I believe was that like you trick your amygdala or something into focusing on the other thing and then all of a sudden when you go back to focus on the part that hurt or that you were nervous or anxious about,

You realize that it didn't hurt and you were making that happen in your head because you were sending those signals to it.

I believe that that's the science on that.

I'm probably wrong.

No,

If that's what they were teaching you,

Because there's different ways to do it as well,

Like they do it with people who have chronic pain,

Right?

The pain is real.

It's not in their imagination.

But if the thought is,

I hate this pain,

I wish I didn't have it,

This sucks,

It's going to hurt even more versus your strategy was really good.

Like it's very useful to focus on another part that doesn't hurt.

But let's say people are hurt everywhere,

Then instead of resisting the pain,

Observe the pain.

What is it like?

Is it a tingling?

Is it a pinching?

To observe the pain versus resisting it and wishing it gone.

There are many different somatic therapies that are useful for trauma and PTSD that are even more effective than talk therapy,

Even like EMDR and brain spotting,

Those work inside the brain.

But another good example that I found useful for fears that are legitimate regarding PTSD,

Like my daughter went before she goes to her yearly medical.

I used to be very nervous when we went to the hospital because I was scared what the blood results would be.

And what I'd have to do,

Because then the brain would go,

Oh,

What if the leukemia is back?

Would it,

Right?

So then I would come back now and go right now,

Whatever,

Tuesday 12,

Our appointment's at four,

Right now she doesn't have leukemia.

Right now she is healthy.

So it comes back to your five senses.

Right now what's in my reality?

Right now I'm safe,

I'm healthy.

I don't need to worry what's going to happen in five years because so much things can happen between now and five years.

So bringing your mind back to the present moment and whether it is just through the five senses,

What do I feel,

Smell,

Taste,

Touch,

Or just the current reality,

Like,

Okay,

I'm in my house,

There's no fire.

If you fear fire,

Let's say,

Or you fear someone's dying,

Right now they're alive.

It's always coming back to the reality of this now moment versus the past or the future.

So there's tons of very useful and different strategies to learn how to tame the mind.

I don't think,

Some are better than others,

But I don't think there's one way.

It'll be the way that you resonate with and feels right for you.

Some people like body work,

Yoga,

They've been known to be also very useful for anxiety and PTSD.

So you want to develop,

To know that you're not your thoughts.

Your thoughts are not your reality is to start working on developing,

Like Eckhart Tolle mentions,

The observing self.

Being able to be,

You know,

That fly on the wall that's looking at you.

What am I thinking of right now?

And putting a distance between those thoughts and how you feel.

Well,

I love that how I feel right now is grateful to be doing the show with you again.

And thank you for that,

Dr.

Gina.

Do you have any final words on our thoughts are not ourselves before we end?

Yeah,

Go play with silent meditation,

Guided meditations,

As an exercise of focused attention to train your brain and use simple daily activities to practice.

The more you practice,

The better it is.

So practice focusing your thoughts while you brush your teeth.

I'm just going to focus on the five senses involved in brushing my teeth.

And every time thoughts pop in,

Planning,

Worrying,

Organizing,

Let those go and tell your mind,

I'll get back to that later.

And right there in just two minutes,

You've already started training your brain.

It's very simple and easy and the benefits add over time.

I love it.

If you guys would like to reach out to Dr.

Gina,

You can find all of the links for how to contact her in the description of this video or audio podcast,

Wherever you're listening or watching this.

She also has tons of resources on this and every other subject that you could possibly think of.

And Gina,

Thank you so much for doing this and for another episode,

Teaching us all how to live a little bit more simply.

Thank you,

Ben.

It's been nice.

All right.

We'll see you guys next week.

Bye everybody.

See you next time.

Bye.

Bye.

For more information or to book an appointment with Dr.

Gina,

Go to drmandragrano.

Com or click the link in the description of this episode.

Reviews

Insightful as always. Good to see you here again. Love and blessings 💜 x