You can’t solve a thought.

That’s what I told a client this morning.

They’re in the earlier stages of looking at life from a broader, lighter perspective, and our conversations are riddled with anxious, angry, and frustrated questions.

Like always.

‘Yeah but if I look back on my past and how that’ll never come back, there’s real pain there, a real feeling of missing, a deeply felt, painful realization of time slipping away, and real unhappiness and melancholy, so how do I fix that!’

‘And how about mourning the parent who died a couple of years ago, is that nothing but thought?!’

Logical questions.

I’ve had and I’ve heard thousands of them.

It can be hard to find a balance here, especially at the beginning of this exploration.

The distinction between realistic and true can take some time to settle in and make sense.

At first, many people go from left to right, the favorite movement of the mind, and can’t immediately see the benefits of a more relaxed relationship with our experiences, without making it into a really rigid, cold, and robotic dogma.

It’s not about that.

Manipulating thoughts is not the solution.

Stopping your thoughts is impossible.

Rearranging that mental mess is an absolute waste of time.

And not believing your thoughts, forever and ever, is not really an option.

It’s also not necessary.

There’s no need to blame thoughts.

Thoughts are amazing.

They create that thing we call ‘life’, and ‘the world’.

They’re what distinguishes us from everything else in the universe.

We have them, we need them, and we can learn to appreciate them in a new way.

Without taking them too seriously, in a natural, effortless fashion.

That’s what it’s all about.

So talking about thoughts and how they come alive within us and how they fuck us up and what to do about it, is not the endgame.

That’s merely the setup.

Thoughts are what open up the connection to consciousness.

And that connection, that recognition, is the only thing that really matters, and the only thing that will keep expanding and liberating the person we believe to be.

There’s no need to spend the rest of your life analyzing what the mind serves.

Because as long as you fight your thoughts, hate your thoughts, obey your thoughts, or try to push them away or numb them out, they still have some (apparent) power over you, and you can play that game into oblivion.

What’s crucial, what’s essential, is not working on your thinking, but becoming aware of everything that’s so compelling, all those experiences, and then be only that.

Be that awareness, and nothing else.

Not forever, per se, but at least for a bit.

Maybe even just a flash.

If you feel that deepest connection, you’ll simply know, just like you simply know everything that’s really important and true, and that will take the journey to a whole new level.

You’ll still reflect on the past and still feel sad for everything that’s gone in the story, because the story continues and you’re part of it and I have no clue what life would be like without it.

Being human is not a curse.

It’s a possibility to experience the biggest relief in the universe.

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(Photo by @priscilladupreez, for Unsplash)