A Peaceful Piece of Advice: Neutralizing thoughts can bring peaceful moments into your life (Doreen Cameron)
Over the course of my life, I have been gifted with advice. Some advice gets passed down by generations, such as “Never go to bed angry” or “Choose your friends wisely.” But the most helpful piece of advice I’ve received was nothing of the sort – in fact, I laughed it off at first.
I was sitting in a therapist’s office in Cambridge, MA and explaining my week to someone I considered an old friend. I was describing some of the stressful events that occurred, and during the process I could hear myself talking faster and quickly judging my thoughts as “bad.” Some examples are remembering hurtful conversations, reliving memories of extreme grief, and having a bad dream. I was so quick to say, “I shouldn’t be having these ‘bad’ thoughts! I live a relatively good life…why am I having so many ‘bad’ thoughts?” Even though it is completely natural and human to experience these types of memories and feelings, I – like so many people – erred in blaming myself. My reasoning was: If I’m in charge of my brain, aren’t I responsible for these negative thoughts?
My therapist sat calmly in the softly lit room. There was an old desktop computer there, and a modest bookshelf that was not-quite filled. The chair that I sat in squeaked as I bounced around, vividly expressing my frustration with my hands and body language. She was ready to give the piece of advice that changed my life…
“Why don’t you try to treat every thought you have as neutral?”
HA! What did she mean, “treat every thought as neutral?” There are such things as “bad” thoughts and “good” thoughts, right? How about the “positive mental attitude” movement happening in the United States? I started to defend my stance with reasoning, but I quickly realized that it was not serving me. Perhaps this brilliant therapist had a point – my history of judging my thoughts as either “good” or “bad” was throwing me into extremes that didn’t really matter.
My therapist went on to explain, “Your brain comes up with literally thousands of thoughts every day. Even when you’re sleeping, your brain is still working. Doesn’t labeling each of these thousands of thoughts sound exhausting?”
WOW. I was exhausted. The mental gymnastics was unnecessary and…exhausting. I figured I would give her advice a try. Treat every thought as neutral.
For me, it was difficult to “catch” my judgment of my thoughts. It was less of picturing each thought as a leaf flowing down a river (a popular image in meditation practice), and more like capturing an annoying gnat in my hand before releasing it. When a memory would come up, eh! It’s neutral. If I was angry at someone for cutting me off in their car, eh! My angry thought doesn't really matter. The quicker I was able to stop the “good” or “bad” thought judgment, the feeling really started to dissolve around me.
What if there’s no such thing as “good” or “bad” thoughts? What if – like an apple is just an apple, a thought is a thought? What if treating every thought as neutral would bring peace to my life?
With practice, this advice has brought me countless moments of peace. Before this advice – and making the conscious decision to really try it – I found myself feeling sad and confused. All because I was putting so much energy into judging my thoughts. Now, I put my energy into letting them go. A thought is just a thought and therefore, doesn’t require much thought at all.
-Doreen Cameron