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Fear of thoughts being read and therefore being obsessed with the worst thoughts.
maximumstillness
New
in Meditation
I've lived with this issue for a while now. I feel I am sending negative thoughts that I don't mean to send out and to people who do not deserve these negative thoughts from me. I've meditated on n off for years and it does help, especially open eyed meditation because it keeps me awake and because I catch myself sending out these thoughts right when I am blinking.
Open eyed meditation helped the most, that and keeping a poker face when all this is going on.
Anyone reccomend a certain type of meditation to keep myself quiet and keep my thoughts to myself.
Open eyed meditation helped the most, that and keeping a poker face when all this is going on.
Anyone reccomend a certain type of meditation to keep myself quiet and keep my thoughts to myself.
0
Comments
What makes you sure you're 'sending out' thoughts?
How did this proposition come to be accepted?
My lama says that clever stategies don't work. You just have to realize that your thoughts are just empty arisings.
I'm not sure what you mean by your last sentence.
metta to you and all sentient beings.
I have tried to just almost label the thoughts as just thoughts, even going as far to communicate that to the person I feel is reading into my thoughts through my gestures.
It is just empty arisings, I hope it will be just that and it quietly goes away.
Have you incorporated any wriggle room to take account of the fact that you may be completely wrong about this conclusion?
As an example, has any other source concurred with your conclusion that your thoughts are 'sent out' and / or 'received' and / or have any effect whatsoever outside of a say more conventional or conservative explanation.
What I meant by asking 'How did this proposition come to be accepted?' is that there was a time when you did not consider your thoughts in this way and there was a time where you did consider your thoughts in this way - what happened between the two positions that you swayed towards the latter and then concluded that there was no other possible position?
In fact I will do it as well I haven't done it for a little while...
Mettha
Trying to quiet the thoughts or (sigh again) keep yourself from unwittingly saying them like I did isn't effective. The cause of the issue is just general anxiety. This is a very OCD type response to anxiety. What helped me was to notice the anxiety I was feeling in general and just be ok with it. Just saying, "Well, I'm anxious, that's ok. It's probably not about anything in particular, just my over anxious brain being anxious for chemical reasons." Then, if something came up to worry about, I'd write it keep a list to 'worry about later'. And later that day, when I could be alone and feel a bit safer, I'd take out the list and check to see if any of the things on my list needed attention.
Another thing that was extremely useful for me was noticing the physical reaction to anxiety I was having. Every emotion has a corresponding muscular reaction, and in negative emotion, often times the reaction is unpleasant even though we don't notice it. Next time you're feeling anxious, try to notice your brow, or shoulders or back or butt or chest and see if your clenching them. If so, try to 'breathe in' to them and relax them. This has a dual benefit of actually relaxing your mind and interrupting the thought pattern of anxiety and switching control to a different part of your brain. This type of skill has been by far the most useful for me fighting anxiety. PM me if you want some book or link suggestions to learn more.
Be gentle with yourself and breath deep often.
This is the main thing, it's the subtle communication and I feel I am exaggerating the thought aspect of it.
It just happened one day, I was mad and started to thinking negatively towards the people around me. Then I sensed they were picking up on it and it threw me into a spiral of paranoia. From then on I was scared to be around anyone because the paranoia would persist and I would resist my negative thoughts.. my resistance to the negative thoughts probably kept it going. I'd clench my fingers, hold my breath, cover it up with other thoughts, etc...
I've tried to let the thoughts just be, but it screams out of me in the worst times. When the situation comes that the thoughts arise, I feel no sense of control. I believe it is just
I will try your recommended methods for relaxation.
Good luck to you...
Also, I would be cautious of giving yourself permission to think negatively about someone who deserves it. Most often we have no idea why people do what they do, but we can figure out why we are annoyed or angry or whatever, and it really never has anything to do with the other person. If you give yourself permission to think negatively about some people/situations, then it makes sense that those types of thoughts seep in even when you don't want them to.
Even if people might sense something about you, most likely they are not sensing that you are thinking about them, but sensing the stress you are putting yourself under. Breathe out and let the thoughts go, they will float away like dandelion fluff.
If it is causing you so much stress and pain and worry, it's definitely looking into seeing a therapist who can help you figure out what is going on. Be kind and gentle with yourself
The reason I say this is otherwise, your 'mind' becomes an unsafe place, a place of uncertainty - where it doesn't need to be like that - it is a safe place.
You seem to accept that subtle communication other than direct telepathy may be a better-suited answer.
It most likely didn't just happen one day - it is more likely that you actively recognised it one day and focused sufficiently to commit it to memory - this may mean that it was happening before your recognition of it.
We communicate on many levels, speech being just one facet of the package - body language, facial expressions, hormones and social signals all play their part - I don't doubt that if you're genuinely feeling like killing everyone in the room, someone may notice and feel something and perhaps react adversely - certainly much of security work for example is based on such 'hunches and feelings' - it is difficult hiding all the indicators of a mental state not in tune to the particular social surroundings.
If you then felt paranoid and insecure then it wouldn't have been pleasant and so likely left an adverse imprint on future behaviour choices.
I wouldn't place too much emphasis on one incident - break the cycle - as I said, I think it's best to think of the mind as a safe place.
You seem to have discovered that you are unable to cover up thoughts - this is not too worrying though as you don't have to cover up thoughts - it's the attempt to cover them that makes them taboo and worth screaming about! Let them have their day - let them say what they want - let them come and go - you stay safe in your mind and these visitors will come and go - leave the door open so they can pass freely.
Others don't have to know what's going on, unless we are intimate with them.
I find that the first communication should be a smile, even if your mind is telling you that the other person is an asshole. How can someone feel negativity coming from you when you are smiling at them?
Thailand is called the land of smiles. Smiling seems to be pretty important here. Most people here want to like you or at least to have a pleasant exchange. By starting with a smile you can quickly move to humour and a more friendly exchange even with a total language barrier.
It's a pretty basic human communication that gets overlooked sometimes.
You have continuous data available to you from your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind.
The dominance and control of one data source (example, thoughts) over the others is a common example of how the ego maintains it's delusive existence.
If you find one data source (in your case consistent thoughts) that seems to dominate over the others, just scan and re open all the other muffled data sources to re-find your balance again.
You don't need to spend any time judging or censoring the content of one dominating data source as long as your other data sources are getting equal billing.
So say this in your mind. I am a loser.
Keep repeating it like a mantra.
Then go I am a.
Then go I am.
Then go I.
Start to create space between the words. I, I, I, I, I.
So that it never reaches the am, a, loser.
Relax totally into the space between the words.
When children grow up in a home with unpredictable parents they learn to unconsciously read every little sign in body language, speech patterns, etc. from that parent to try to anticipate their parent's behavior so they can adjust their own attitude to try to influence the parent to act in a nicer way towards them.
So when these children grow up they are very adept at reading subtle cues in other people and at first are generally unaware that this is what they are doing. They will then try to control their own behavior to effect other people, reenacting the relationship they had with their parent.
This is how things have been for me. I tend to be very sensitive and reactive toward any possible sign of discomfort or displeasure from others.
If this pattern fits you at all your attempts to control your thoughts are maybe your way of positively influencing others.
Remember, most other people simply aren't as sensitive as you are to whatever subtle cues you maybe sending out with your thought patterns.
The only way I know to deal with it is the long process of working on yourself and in particular developing an open and loving heart. Though that is something particularly difficult for those who have been betrayed by a parent.
If this is not you sorry for using your thread to expose myself.
The best thing so far that I came upon is not taking my fears to heart and letting it just be fearful thoughts. I hope this is the key to it all.