Imagine you have a small octopus attached to your head. It’s legs are wrapped around you obscuring your vision and changing what you see. It has been there so long you think this is how the world really looks. When the octopus is cranky, you feel cranky and you see the world as cranky. On the rare occasions when the octopus is happy and peaceful you get a few moments of calm. The sad truth is, his mood is your mood.
Now imagine a kind friend is standing before you. She gently removes the octopus from your head. She pulls it away so that now you can see the octopus. With just a little bit of distance between you and the octopus, you can see the world around you much more clearly. You think, “Wow! It’s bright and wonderful here in life without the octopus wrapped around my head.”
The octopus in the story represents your thoughts. You are not your thoughts, you are the one observing your thoughts. Most of the time we are sucked in to believing that our thoughts are true, that whatever the latest worry or fear or craving drifting across our mind is who and how we are. Not so.
We now know from neuroscience that the human brain is actually four-brains-in-one, developed sequentially over the last then thousand or more years. These four brains are our:
- primitive brain, which is focused on survival/self-defense;
- emotional-cognitive brain, which is the seat of emotional intelligence;
- neocortex, with capacities for complex/creative thinking; and
- prefrontal lobe, for harmonizing and integrating.
Here’s the deal – any negative response to an outside stimulus (think traffic, lost car keys, pesky coworker) immediately activates our primitive brain and causes survival/self-defense thoughts to start. When the primitive brain is active we are cut off from our higher mental capabilities. Nada. Zippo.
Realizing we can step back and observe our thoughts is life-changing. I know it changed mine. As we learn to observe our thoughts, we can then choose what we think and therefore who we become. This is what many spiritual traditions refer to as awakening, enlightenment or the kingdom of heaven within.
The Tao de Ching says in verse 81 “Words born of the mind are not true. True words are not born of the mind.” The Bible instructs us in 2 Corinthians to “take every thought captive.” And the first verse of the Buddha’s teachings in the Dhammapada says, “Our life is shaped by our mind. We become what we think.” We have the powerful capability, as well as the responsibility, to choose and direct our thoughts. The thoughts that careen through our mind are not true, and practicing witnessing them without believing them is a powerful and life changing practice.
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