Thinking, what is it that you do actually?

Being your Self is an experience which does not involve your thinking. Thoughts (which you experience in your head), are related to your personality. When you pay close attention, you will notice a same old pattern over and over again in which you 'create an experience', and notice each individual step. Hereunder you will find some variations on this theme.

The normal personality mechanism, as is so often described here on the site, is: perceiving > judging/interpreting > feeling > hold on to or get rid of feeling. Rather than taking your senses as a starting point for creating an experience, you can also pick a situation yourself and mentally move through the above process. This is a pattern you are likely to do almost continuous throughout the day, which is very convenient for your personality who can thus  rest assured that you stay focused on his processes.

For example now that you know this, you are likely to notice clearly that in pleasant situations you attempt to hold on to the feeling: you keep on repeating the pleasant experience over and over again. What you will then notice is, that the experience itself only lasts for a very short period of time, and that there seems no alternative but to mentally repeat this over and over again for likewise - yet also short - experiences. However, when you do so over and over again, doubt will enter your mind, you will include other aspects, and before you know it, it becomes less and less pleasant and less interesting to repeat.

Also when for example you believe you are looking for the solution to a problem you perform these patterns: you pick an imaginary starting point for the situation and project onto this everything you know or suspect or believe could be a solution, thus coming up with an imaginary 'outcome'. However, since this is all mental stuff only, the effects of an outcome you suspect to be unpleasant is easier: you simply attempt to toss all ingredients, introduce different thoughts, in order to attempt to come up with a solution that might at least work a bit. In this situation you limit yourself and every other person involved to their personalities and use whatever you know about their 'set' of judgments, wishes etc. Of course you will conveniently overlook the fact that this is a huge limitation of yourself and others, since that is in the interest of your personality.

Something likewise you also do when dealing with situations yet to come, for example a meeting, a building plan next to your house, buying another computer or new sweater. You use your present knowledge of all ingredients to create an expectation of what life is like when the changes would have been effectuated, and also about the road leading to this - whether this is right for you, what you will and will not experience etc., and depending on how you value the outcome - desired or not - you will find yourself wanting to defend your present state (and of course start to think over the most effective strategy ;-)  ) or not.

In what seems to be the privacy of your own mind you are confronted with the fact that you may attempt to use your body, voice and words in order to show a different - in your opinion more successful - picture to the outside world, however, you also notice that you simply cannot make this work in the same way for yourself mentally. Hence the endless stream of thoughts through which you attempt to relive the many situations you encounter during the day, most of which you cannot really make work for you (only the intensity of your experience of this will vary), and attempt to make them more successful and safe in retrospect, thus hoping the balance of your life will be changed into 'more succesful'. Here you are also 'helped' by the difference between the image you create to show the outside world, and your real experiences, which increases the idea of 'wrong' of your own experiences. You know from experience these thoughts usurp a great part of your attention during the day ;-)

When you cannot come up with a solution to your issues, then you have the option to start fantasizing about how things could be. Mentally hoping for a situation where it would be possible to come up with a pleasant and working solution based on your personality mechanism, and simply skipping the part about 'how', which seems to increase your opportunities for success.

And there is of course the very popular solution of 'hiding', attempting to hide the thought from your awareness as soon as it dawns on you, in order to avoid the unpleasant experience which it is guaranteed to bring you. You no doubt recognize this is not a solution in itself, and you will have to repeat this endlessly. The fact that you can become very good at this, does not say anything about the quality of the solution you have chosen ;-)

Thoughts are nothing more than a way to have you believe your personality should be in charge of your life, simply becáuse you have them. They are the mechanism of your personality. And yet it is not true that this would be the only way to live your life, and it certainly is not the most pleasant one! The fact that you made a habit of thinking does not justify that you should have to wánt to do so, respectively that there would be no alternative to this. Thoroughly recognize that they do not bring you want you really want, then you will no doubt start to look for the alternative and you will become prepared to open up for that. On this site you can find extensive inspiration for this process. Yet remember: awareness cannot come into a mind that has decided to oppose it, yet that you can always reconsider this decision.