On immediate thoughts and feelings.
Understanding thought patterns.
When trying to understand consciousness we must become aware of what is actually transpiring.
We must maintain an awareness of our thoughts and feelings. We have to become aware of what we are actually experiencing.
What are you thinking about right now?
Do you feel the chair under your own butt?
The socks on your feet?
Tiny hairs on your arms, on your ears?
When you shower do you feel each individual droplet of water
as it runs down and across your skin?
Most humans don't feel these things.
There is a reason human beings "turn off" and ignore lots of sensations. The brain, the subconscious at least, is being flooded with data all the time, everyday. So it shifts your focus only to the important sensations. Pain, pleasure, hunger, thirst, signs of danger, etcetera. The brain only alerts you of sensations that evolutionarily it has found to best prepare you for survival in your environment.
The brain keeps you updated only when its "important". But has "important" changed for the human brain?
Are new things important for human beings?
Has our environment changed?
Our environment has changed, there are no longer tigers and lions trying to eat us. No longer poisonous snakes trying to venomize us. Or at least these events occur much less often.
So while we are in much less danger than our ancestors we still use a brain that is suited for dangerous environments.
However there is a new dangerous environment that human beings have fallen into.
The emotional environment. We are thinking-feeling beings. As thinkers and feelers we must be careful and alert of what we are thinking and feeling.
Just as we are aware of a hot surface that can burn us, we must become aware of thoughts and feelings that can harm us; mentally, emotionally.
But are our brains set up to watch out for these sorts of things?
Not naturally.
But where nature fails, man makes progress.
It is up to us, each and every one of us to become aware of our own emotions and feelings. To understand ourselves. When we understand what we are feeling, what we are thinking, we can identify if there is a need to change.
Just as when we identify a danger in the physical environment, we eliminate the threat. We move to a safer environment or we eliminate the danger. We must do this also with the feelings and emotions that strike us.
We need to understand that our thoughts and emotions are not out of our control. We are not subject to the whims of emotional outburst .
When you are angry, you aren't being forced to be angry. You are simply reacting. Once you are aware of your anger you make a decision, to maintain that anger if you feel its appropriate, or to stop being angry and calm down.
Now everyone gets angry sometimes, its simply a reaction to a stimulus. But once we are aware of our anger. Once we ask ourselves what am I feeling right now? We can change our emotional state. We can let go of that anger.
The trick is becoming aware of our emotions.
What thoughts and feelings are you aware of?
Are you hungry? Are you sad? Are you jovial? Are you bored? Interested?
Are you aware when you are these things, or do you simply experience them?
Do waves of sadness pass through you? Affecting you, affecting your mood?
The first step in becoming aware, is understanding what to become aware of.
Thoughts and feelings.
Certainly you can think about things and you can feel things. And you are aware of what you are thinking and feeling.
But there are other times when thoughts and feelings just pop into your head. You dont summon them up. They are reactionary.
These reactionary thoughts and feelings really do just "pop up".
You see something, hear something, taste something, touch something, or even smell something. And little thoughts and feelings just appeare in your brain.
They are immediate thoughts, and immediate feelings and you have very little control over them.
Your subconscious brain, the one thats pretty tough to control is in charge of them. The same way its in charge of dreams.
Now these immediate thoughts and feelings are pretty good clues for figuring out what’s going on inside your brain. They are indicators of what your subconscious associates with what you are seeing, hearing, touching, etcetera.
If you get feelings of disgust, then your subconscious brain is saying you think this is gross.
But you don't have to listen to your subconscious brain. Do you really think its gross?
I mean what is gross about what you are seeing? Does it smell bad? Does it make weird noises? Are you sure its gross? I mean if your subconscious brain says its gross, then it probably is. But you might want to make sure.
Your brain doesn't mind lying to you.
It does so often. The same way it doesn't let you feel your socks unless you think about it. Your subconscious brain thinks it knows what is best for you. But does it?
So when you see a picture of a dead relative you were close with, and your subconscious brain sends you a feeling of sadness. You have to wonder. Is this really sad? Or am I just agreeing with my subconscious brain because I always have before?
When you get angry, Do you want to be angry? Or are you just agreeing with your subconscious brain?
When you dream about kissing a friend of yours, do you think you should really kiss them? Not always, sometimes you disagree with your subconscious brain. Its ok to do so.
Your conscious brain, is the one that makes the decisions. You get to decide. Not the mind that sends the immediate thoughts and feelings.
You dont have to let these immediate reactionary thoughts and feelings dictate to you. They don't have to control who you are and how you feel.
Once you become aware of them, you can choose to disagree with them.
Disagree with the sadness, with the anger, with the disgust.
Being open minded is entertaining the possibility that your subconscious mind should be disagreed with.
Now why should you disagree with your subconscious?
Because it is made up of things like, the television you've watched, the movies you've rented, the music you listen to. The things your parents have said. The advertising you see.
All these things affect and shape your subconscious.
I don't know about you, but just because I saw a sign once that said "KFC Chicken it's delicious!" doesn't mean it actually is. But if I saw a bucket of chicken, my subconscious would say "Its delicious" sending me an immediate thought and feeling.
Do I agree with that thought? With that feeling?
I don't have to. But once I taste the chicken and smell it. I find that its nice and fatty. Greasy and warm. I realize that it is pretty good. Maybe not delicious, but at least pretty good.
If you saw a sign that said "Bricks they are delicious!" you would not agree with your subconscious so quickly.
With the increase in advertisements, with psychologists helping ad executives figure out how to penetrate your brain, its become an increasingly dangerous environment for your mind.
There’s not so many tigers, but there are mental and emotional predators.
So becoming aware of your immediate thoughts and feelings isn't very difficult. Understanding when they occur is a good start.
They usually come when you detect a stimulus. Pictures, sounds, tastes, etcetera. This is all the time!
You are probably being bombarded with immediate thoughts and feelings all the time!
But you can change what immediate thoughts and feelings you receive.
Once you disagree with your subconscious, it sort of makes a note of it. It says, "oh this wasn't the right response, I’ll do it the other way next time"
So if every time you get angry you disagree and calm down. Eventually your subconscious will say "Oh anger is the appropriate response, like I thought it was."
If you are embarrassed socially, and you disagree with that immediate feeling, your subconscious will eventually say "Oh there’s no reason to blush, there’s no reason to make his stomach drop."
I say eventually because it doesn't happen just once.
You have probably agreed with your immediate thoughts and feelings millions of times. While you wont have to disagree that many times, it will still take a short while for your subconscious to catch on.
Don't worry the brain is a fast learner. In fact it is the fastest learner on the planet.
Something you should be aware of. If you see something that makes you sad or angry or happy. And you agree with that reactionary feeling. You are giving yourself consent to feel that way. You have only yourself to blame for continuing to feel sad or angry or happy.
Once you are aware of your emotion, even if the reactionary feeling is caused by another. It is you and you alone who is continuing to feel that way.
No one can blame you for being embarrassed, but once you realize that emotional state. You are agreeing to feel that way, you are telling your brain, yes feel embarrassed here. It is no longer anyone else’s fault.
This does not give people an excuse to be mean, or to make people sad.
Once you are aware of your own emotions, of what causes immediate thoughts and feelings, you become much better at detecting and understanding other peoples emotional states.
Only a mean and wicked person would continue creating negative emotions in people knowing what they are doing. Only an ignorant person would create negative emotions in people without being aware.
You must decide, is the person causing me distress, is he aware of what he/she is doing? If they are not aware, make them aware.
If they are aware or you make them aware, and it continues, this person is mean or wicked and should be avoided or eliminated.
Just like seeing a shape in the woods, if it turns out to be a pet dog, that didn’t know it was scaring you, you have nothing to fear once you find out about it. But if you find out about it, and it is a tiger, you should run away or kill it.
Now you can't really kill people but maybe you could avoid them.
I don't know what kind of life you want to live. What kind of life you agree to consent to.
I personally feel like consenting to happy, calm, insightful, creative, and beautiful thoughts.
I try not to consent to anger, aggression, violence, despair, or "giving up" thoughts.
If you need help, imagine your brain is filled with a bunch of little guys in suits, they hear what you hear, and see what you see, and know what is going on. When they see a person or something they all come up with ideas, about what to do, they all send the ideas to your conscious brain "you" and you decide which one to agree with. That guy gets rewarded, and maybe the others get punished or even fired.
Example.
You see a pretty girl, she says "hi"
The little guys in your head are sitting around a table and come up with ideas. Listed next to the idea is the reason the guy came up with the idea
"Say hi back, but do it nice with a smile"-its worked out before, saw it in a movie
"Say nothing keep walking"-its easy, no stress, worked before
"Punch her, girls are dumb"-see lots of movies with violence, girls are dumb says Rap music
"Make a joke about farts, be immature and awkward, yell 'you need to coool out!"-have done since a child continue doing that
"Do something weird, be strange"-listens to weird music, does weird things, thinks weird thoughts, only fitting
You get all these immediate thoughts and feelings sent to you from the little guys.
Or you get just one of them.
You can either do one of them, take their advice, agree to consent to feeling that way.
Or
You can disagree and do something different.
If you do one, the little guy goes, I got it right, he might get promoted, his ideas are more likely to get sent again.
If you do something different, the other guys might get fired, they might be seen as unnecessary. And a new guy might get hired. A guy that comes up with ideas like what you suggested.
And something like this happens all the time.
So become aware of what your brain sends you.
Understand that you cand isagree with your brain!
Disagree or not, the choice is yours.