Compulsive Thinking

Finding true happiness elusive?

Maybe we don’t have the right definition—it’s a syntax error. It could be, perhaps, that we’ve set up conditions for our happiness. Conditions whereby our happiness is guaranteed only ‘IF’ these conditions are present; conditions being what they are, of course, are only conditional—no guarantee there. Or maybe we’ve set up a situation where we expect a certain result. Our expectations, therefore, become just another conditional variable that will trigger a typical binary result—yes or no; either I am happy with the current situation or I am not.

It’s interesting to note, however, that the thought, “I am happy” or I am unhappy” is fairly benign; it’s for the most part electrical. The actual state of ‘being’ either happy or unhappy is ushered in only moments later with the corresponding emotional response. The degree to which the emotional response impacts the present moment is directly proportional to the degree to which we are identified with it. In other words, how caught up am I in the story? If I am mildly caught up, the impact is negligible. If, on the other hand, I am totally caught up in the story, the results can be disastrous. What story am I talking about? The Story of I.

Each one of us is the sum total of every thought and emotional response we’ve ever had. And so the story grows each and every moment we’re alive by the various emotional responses trigged by our precipitous thought patterns. In turn, each emotional response triggers another line of thinking made up a many different thoughts, either about the past or some anticipated future--ad nauseum. The result is a complex web of endless analysis, speculation and imagination that once set into motion is extremely difficult to govern because it takes on a life of it’s own. We’re powerless to stop it because we’re not aware that it’s going on. You don’t know what you don’t know. The net result is what’s known as compulsive thinking.

Compulsive thinking is a disease (dis-ease). It’s an addiction that leaves us unable to function as we were intended. It keeps us from really living and enjoying life because it removes us from the only place where life can be lived--right here in the present moment. Endless thoughts of regret or resentment caused by past events or ideas about what might happen in the future rob us of the opportunity to live a full and meaningful life because the places where we spend the majority of our time are not real—they’re imaginary self preservation devices created by our ego. We only believe them to be real because they are all part of the Story and we ARE the Story.

The places of the Story are fictionalized emotional creations of our mental cogitation we’ve been conditioned to believe to be real. They keep us running like a gerbil on an endless wheel; and we wonder why the scenery never changes. This Story has a name and a face. It gets up every morning and goes to the work or school. It cooks dinner and yells at the dog when there’s no money in the bank. It’s won Nobel prizes and sleeps in dumpsters. It’s us and it’s waiting patiently to escape from the mental prison we’ve unwittingly created for ourselves.

We start by learning to remove ourselves as the main character from the Story; we go from being in front of the camera to behind the camera. By putting ourselves in the director’s chair we’re afforded an entirely new and revealing look at the lead character. A slight change in perspective—as in moving from subject to object, results in an entirely different worldview; one in which things, both good and bad, happen yet we’re left completely untouched by the precipitous events that would normally batter us about like a leaf in a hurricane.

So today you can start by simply being aware of the thoughts that go through your head. An excellent place to do that is sitting in traffic. The next time you find yourself packed into a grid of immovable automobiles, exhale deeply, rest your attention on the road ahead of you and spend a few minutes observing the various thoughts that go through your head. You might be surprised at what you find!