Life Lessons
3 Effective Ways to Deal With Injurious Thoughts
Let’s defeat them
A terrible nightmare woke me up at 3 AM that morning. The nightmare with stunning graphics and story showed me how worthless I was. I remained in bed for 30 minutes analyzing the dream. I felt terrible and weak. The dream and its subsequent thoughts were miserable.
I usually restrain myself from using the lessons from Vedic/Buddhist spirituality I practiced once. Their ideas were limiting my worldview and perspectives. But that morning I couldn’t stand my thoughts. The more I argued with them, the more I suffered. So, after a long gap, I took out that spiritual weapon — focusing, drowning, and losing myself in a feeling of nothingness — and used it on myself.
I fell asleep.
But the nightmare and the subsequent thoughts haunted me for days. They persisted as a physical wound would.
I didn’t know what to do with them. They were injuring and damaging.
We are our thoughts. I have elsewhere tried to justify this statement. They play a crucial role in our knowledge and everything else.
The distinction between true and false is essential to our survival and everything else.
If I am hiking in the woods and have a thought that A tiger is around, my immediate reaction will be to get alert and look around. I do this because I want proof of that thought. If I don’t find any, I relax and walk on. I can relax because I didn’t find proof of the truth of that thought.
But I still ask, ‘Why my thought may have told me that?’
I relaxed because I found a certain false in the thought.
When I question if there’s a tiger around and notice birds flying or frightened animals sounds, my heartbeat increases, I sweat and get afraid. This is because I found evidence to support the thought. I start to figure out defense mechanisms. I found a certain proof of the truth of that thought.
The problem is that the differentiation between true and false is not easy. Our thoughts don’t provide the distinction. Thoughts in isolation can be either. We can judge false thoughts to be true and vice-versa. I panicked that morning when I woke up with a nightmare because I took the thoughts as true — which may or may not have been the case.
This is where we use a faculty called thinking. Among many things, it allows us to locate evidence.
Oxford Dictionary defines Evidence as:
the facts, signs, or objects that make you believe that something is true.
In the case of the tiger in the woods, I searched for facts, signs, or objects that had to prove to me that the tiger was there. In case I didn’t find any, I relaxed and moved on. When I found some, I panicked and went into self-defense.
But figuring out the evidence wasn’t so easy that morning. The dream and its subsequent thoughts told me detrimental things followed by imaginative ‘evidence.’ All this emotionally injured me.
Unlike the tiger case, I had no way of identifying facts, signs, or objects because the thoughts were not about my immediate physical environment. They were about my self-worth and poor decisions — subjective things.
I then tried to argue with the evidence it provided by searching for counterevidence which was again countered…
Now, how do I correctly gather evidence to judge true and false about subjective things like self-worth and decisions?
In other words,
How do I deal with injurious subjective thoughts?
If my thoughts tell me I am worthless, justified by immediate evidence of me not having money, this injures me.
How do I deal with Injurious Thoughts?
The path I chose (spirituality) was of ignoring — focusing, drowning, and losing myself to a feeling of nothingness!
Is that it? Is that the best solution? Is it healthy?
As I write this, I notice how absurd but effective the spiritual method is. While it would have been a stupid method in the woods, it is an effective method in the safety of the bed. That is, in the domain of subjective thoughts.
But in the long term, it seems hazardous. Since it is like tucking away an object of discomfort, I don’t think it can stop thoughts from haunting you after a certain period. Like I said in the beginning, while I did manage to fall asleep, the wound hasn’t left me.
A long-term approach to spirituality is likely to keep one away from addressing the issues at hand and turning one’s life into one of ignorance. It was one of the reasons I had stopped using their teachings altogether because I thought they were limiting my worldview and perspectives.
What is the solution?
Here are 3 Effective Ways:
(Please remember that I am only talking about injurious thoughts related to Self-Worth and Decisions)
- Be Strong: Irrespective of the situation and threat, this is the most effective thing we can do to ensure that aren’t any repercussions in both the short and long term. Strength will help us deal with the injury better. We need to make this the mantra of our life: Be strong. Come what may I will deal with it could be the best thing to remind yourself during a crisis.
- Seek Evidence: While seeking evidence may not be as easy as in the immediate and physical scenarios, I think we should try to look for real-life proof of the doubts we are having. Trying to answer questions such as What is the basis of the thoughts I am having? How can I prove it? What may have triggered it? can be helpful as they take us away from the injury to the lands of scrutiny, where we have control (somewhat). This questioning I is the apt method to judge the true or false thoughts that are about things as subjective as self-worth and decisions
- Remind yourself of deeds done: This is where every deed ever done comes into play. Reminding ourselves of each act of success achieved- however trivial- can prove to be very useful. Maybe it is a game won, a road traveled, an adventure, or an obstacle that had been overcome!
The purpose behind writing this was to firstly, interpret what had happened to me and then to try to heal myself through it.
I think I have successfully managed to do it (for now).
Writing for me is very important for many reasons. I am feeling the beauty and reality of one of those now.
