Unwanted Thoughts and Feelings We’ve Noticed Repeating

This topic is connected to thoughts, feelings, and even the body, things we’ve already explored quite a bit before. Since we don’t always know which feeling will take over or what thought will pop up on the "screen" of our mind, we can still try to bring some of our own influence into that part of our existence.

In fact, the desire to reduce the impact of unwanted thoughts and feelings usually arises only after we’ve already started getting to know ourselves by observing our thoughts and emotions and noticing that certain unwanted ones keep coming back.

When it comes to weakening the influence of these unwanted thoughts and feelings, our attention plays a key role.                            

From ancient shamans to modern researchers, people have discovered that unwanted thoughts and emotions can’t just be easily removed, erased, or weakened. Working on this takes some dedicated time and persistence.

Every time we give attention to unwanted things, we add energy to their influence. But every time we recognize them and then shift our attention to something happening in the body, like our breath, heartbeat, skin sensations, smells, tastes, or our body’s position in space, we reduce the energetic charge of those unwanted thoughts or feelings.

In practice, redirecting attention away from unwanted thoughts and emotions and toward bodily sensations has proven very helpful. Since attention adds energy to whatever it’s focused on, shifting it away from unwanted thoughts and feelings drains their power. Instead, consciously directing attention to present-moment physical sensations of our body adds energy to real life which is happening here and now.

The more we practice this redirection of attention on some bodily function, the more we become aware of the present moment, rather than having our perception of reality clouded by unwanted thoughts or feelings that try to impose a distorted version of reality.

So, the whole "game" is about shifting attention from unwanted thoughts and feelings to neutrally observing some automatic bodily functions. This way, we become witnesses of bodily reality instead of getting caught up and even identified within the content of thoughts and emotions.

This method of shifting attention also starts the process of disidentifying from thoughts and feelings. We begin to see that thoughts and emotions are always changing, constantly passing through the "screen" of our mind. Identifying with them traps us under the mind’s control, rather than letting the mind serve us. 

Often, this method also reveals deeper layers of our mind where old decisions or fixed conclusions are stored, which keep generating new unwanted thoughts and emotions.

But some people want even more. They’d like to reprogram their mind so that desired thoughts and feelings arise more often. 

Essentially, they want to influence themselves through thoughts and emotions to achieve certain goals or desires. Of course, when we have a project or goal, having creative and desired thoughts and feelings as allies is definitely helpful!

This kind of influence on our mind can also happen indirectly, through persistent repetition. 

Firstly we focus attention on a bodily function, like breathing or heartbeat or another physical sensation, with which we quiet the mind. Then, once calm, we intentionally call up and focus our attention on an image, thought, feeling, or bodily sensation whose influence we want to strengthen.

Some individuals want both actions, first to reduce unwanted thoughts and feelings and then work on increasing influence of desired ones. They can still use this art of an indirect approach: starting by shifting attention from unwanted thoughts to a neutral bodily sensation or environmental perception. Only once the mind is completely calm, they then focus their attention on desired images, thoughts, emotions, or physical sensations.

This method is, of course, directly connected to one of the oldest traditional meditation techniques, focusing on the breath, which is just one of many methods leading us to deeper levels of understanding this miracle and mystery of existence.

There is another separate method of dealing with unwanted thoughts and feelings. A close friend explorer once shared with me that the following yantra and mantra can offer a powerful help in process of removal of unwanted thoughts, feelings, and even addictions.                 

The yantra is gazed softly by watching its centre, while repeating the accompanying mantra.