Psychedeic 7-Day Preparation course
OUR THOUGHTS
Instructions
1. Read the lesson
2. Use the journal prompts to explore and expand what this lesson means for you personally. Don't feel pressure to answer every single question; put pen to paper and see where it takes you.
3. Close with the 10-minute meditation or meditate silently on your own.
Thoughts: Creating Your Life Based On How You Authentically Feel
--Our Thoughts Create The World Around Us--
If you think you live in the best city, in an awesome apartment and have great friends, you do! Conversely if you think your life is hard, your job isn’t right, and people around you are generally unkind then hey, you're absolutely right. There is really no right and wrong. Your thoughts are a your personal perception of what's going on and they are what you choose to focus on.
Think about your focus on the most basic areas of our life:
Our Appearance: We’re taught to think there’s a right way to look. How has this affected how we think about ourselves and the measures we go through to fit into a specific mold?
Money: We’re taught to think that the amount of money we have dictates our self-worth. How has this affected how you think about yourself and others?
Relationships: We’re taught to think we can seek validation from outside ourselves. How has this affected how you think about relationships and the search for a mate?
Our Security: We’re taught to think that certain possessions and choices ensure our stability, health and happiness. How has this affected how you think your life and what choices and sacrifices you’ve made for the notion of security?
--Becoming Aware of Our Thoughts--
It's highly possible that we make decisions based off of the choices and opinions of people we don’t even know and don't even value. These decisions have been so ingrained in our society for generations that by the time it left your parents mouths and hit your ears, you easily believed it to be true.
The shows we watch, the books and magazines we choose, and the people that surround us tend to be ones that agree with the way we think. It’s difficult to consider the possibility that a different perspective could exist and be valid. If we don't regularly open our mind up to new perspectives or dare to challenge the way we think, it becomes too easy to judge others and yourself based on these rigid set of rules that you’ve accepted as your worldview.
When we don’t check in with our thoughts, a few things can go wrong:
You hold onto thoughts that don’t serve you, that hold you back or leave you feeling less than awesome.
Your dream life will seem unrealistic, dumb or like something you could never accomplish.
You become judgmental. A judgement is how we perceive a situation, person or environment based on the thought rules we’ve adopted. We make a judgment call on everything around us without any fresh perspective that could expand our view.
--Why Do We Think What We Think--
The awesome side of thoughts is that we get to choose them! And there’s no law or authority that exists to tell us which way of thinking is right or wrong. Because there is no governing body of "right thought", we often look for pre-existing schools of thought to help us decide (aka religion, self help books, blogs, news, etc). Whether we accept the whole school of thought or choose bits and pieces from different sources, it’s our choice. Because how we think is how we create our world, it’s pretty freaking important that we know why we think what we do and constantly dust off our perceptions. It’s important that we are conscious of the judgments we make and the situations where we push our agenda to be right in the face of a different perspective or truth.
--Meditation as a Tool To Help Gain Awareness of Your Thoughts--
Meditation is a great tool for viewing our thought process. We can work toward viewing our thoughts as if they are on a petri dish. When we practice detaching from our thoughts, it’s easier to decide if we’d like to keep them around or not. By paying attention to the way we think, we can build our lives and create our reality from heart and not from the rules, fears and hopes of things outside of ourselves.
As you journal, do your very best to stay kind and compassionate as you push yourself to provide open and honest answers. Nobody is going to speak their truth to a harsh, judgmental and mean person. Don’t be that person! Be patient, understanding and kind to yourself as you explore why you do what you do. Becoming aware of who we are, the shadow and light side, can be jarring. If we’re willing to take the time to discover our true bad ass nature, its ultimately beautiful.
Thoughts Journaling Prompts
List 5 Things in your life you are most grateful for; list 5 Things about your appearance and personality that you love.
Who did you feel you had to be in your family during your childhood? (Examples: If you parents argued a lot maybe you felt like the mender; if you helped raising siblings maybe you felt like a caretaker; if you always seemed to be going against the grain maybe you felt like the burden or rebel; maybe you felt like the Great Hope, the Fuck Up, the Forgotten or the Fun guy). Do feel like you are still playing this role in your current life and in the ways that you think? If so, list them.
Where do you get most of your information from? How much time do you spend getting this outside information? Do you view this source as negative or positive? Does this source leaving you feeling uplifted or discomforted?
What do you think about your appearance and personality? Where does your measure of yourself come from? How does your measure of yourself make you feel
How do you feel about your relationship with money? Where does your measure of your financial resources come from? What other resources do you have in your life besides money? Do you think that your non-monetary resources are as important as your monetary ones? What does your financial situation say about you and where did you learn to measure your worth in this way?
How do you feel about your love life? What does this say about you? What would make you worthy of love? What would make someone else worthy of your love?
What does real security look like to you? What does freedom look like to you? Where did your idea of security and freedom come from?
What does your dream past look like? What changes and why? What stays the same and why?
What does your dream future look like? When you read over it, does it sound like the inner you or are there inklings of schools of thought you’ve adopted from other people? Can you pinpoint where each detail originated?
What does your dream for this present moment look like? Imagine the best you can have with the resources and people around you.