Thoughts Beget More Thoughts. What are you thinking?

By Lori Lines

The mind can be construed as a double-edged sword. It is capable of providing us great benefit as well as great injury. Naturally, we want to cultivate our inner processes in such a way that we maximize or minds' capacity for doing good and to minimize its tendencies for causing pain and suffering.  

It is important, in this juncture in our evolution, to nurture our minds in a way that will bring us greater joy.  The mind tends to operate in a rather haphazard way, bounding from thought to thought with little or no apparent prompting of direction. Our minds seem to have a mind of their own.  It might appear that our minds are thoroughly out of our control as if we have no choice of the kinds of things that drift across our minds.

Although thoughts seem to come out of the blue, they are, in fact, conditioned
by previous patterns of thought.  The thoughts that our mind produces now have been shaped by its history of thinking. This history can connect all the way back to previous lives we have lived as well as our current life history of thinking.

Neuro-scientific research has shown that routine patterns of thought make incremental but substantial changes in the way the brain is structured and the way the mind functions. These alterations make the brain more effective at doing what it is asked to do.  If we habitually think in certain ways, then our minds become more adept at these patterns of thought. Patterns of thought becomes belief.  Beliefs manifest patterns of behavior and circumstances that can benefit us or injure us.

Thus, as the concept of conditioning suggests, positive or wholesome thoughts create a propensity for more positive or wholesome thoughts.  Fortunately, we can use this dynamic principle to our advantage.  While we may not be in conscious control of each and every thought, a meditation practice can show us that we can choose which thoughts to entertain and to develop and which to observe and release.  In this manner, we can influence the kinds of thoughts we are more likely to produce in the future.

Knowing this, we can use our power to select and foster or relinquish thoughts that can help us to cultivate a skillful and clear mind that serves us well.

I invite you  to become aware and observe your thoughts as they arise, but also identify the kinds of thoughts you are having. Once identified, we can make conscious choices about how we will handle them.

What can occur in a QHHT session or in a Mindfulness Coaching session is when one begins to wake up to the types of thoughts they habituate, one comes to an understanding of how these habitual thoughts have manifested problematic patterns in one's life. And, with this self-knowledge, one can begin to shift and change the trajectory of ones life altogether.

In love and truth,

Lori Lines
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