by Natti Ronel
The tool “Distinguishing Facts” suggests to us an emotional assessment to improve our distinguishing of facts -- giving attention to our emotional state and identifying what we feel and when. It is possible to do this with a daily review, at the end of every day. If we identify a tendency to act out of emotion -- and who doesn’t have such tendencies? -- then a check of the feelings that have arisen in us over the course of the day will create a habit of emotional awareness. When the habit of awareness develops, we can identify that we are feeling, and also identify which feeling is rising in us at a given moment, and especially which feeling is trying to manipulate us.
Most of us have a characteristic feeling (or a few characteristic feelings) which tries and sometimes succeeds in manipulating us -- for example, fear, which makes us act impetuously; dread, which paralyzes us; or anger that makes us quarrel; and even carefree joy which leads us to make hasty decisions, and so on. When we have identified a characteristic feeling that is manipulating us, our sensitivity to it is sharpened and we can locate it at the “moment of truth” and refrain from acting in accordance with its dictates. It’s highly recommended that we talk about it with somebody whose opinion we respect. We should avoid discussing with anyone who is liable to distort reality even further, and “egg us on” into action, and we should definitely not let the feeling manipulate us.
Furthermore, it is worthwhile adopting for ourselves the slogan of the step-program: “Feelings are not facts.” This can be repeated in the mind on a continual basis, until it is absorbed and the intensity of the feeling is eased. As for all the supposed knowledge that the dominant feeling tries to teach us about the world, we can assume that most of it is wrong, distorting and misleading. It isn’t a fact. The nicest part of this is that the moment we identify what’s happening to us, i.e. the feeling is rising and trying to manipulate us with distortions of the facts, and we call the feeling by its name, and discuss it with another person, then we are looking at it from a lateral perspective, not identifying with it, and all at once, its power to distort is diminished. Thus, our ability to distinguish facts is reinforced and we succeed in avoiding self-centeredness. Gradually, we learn to experience the feeling in depth and breadth, without losing ourselves and our sense of reality in the process.
Feeling is a central part of what it is to be human. It’s an inseparable part of the tissue of our lives, and it has a wide range of different influences, some of them good and some less so. When we examine our behaviors, if only for a fleeting moment, we can see to what extent feeling dominates us. Willpower and logic also play a part, but feeling has a special ability to manage our consciousness. Obviously, it’s natural to feel. It’s important that we feel, and feeling is a central part of human existence.
The message here regarding feelings is, in fact, to accept feeling in full, not to make a big story out of it, not to be alarmed by it, even when it scares us, and not to be overwhelmed by it, losing our faculty for distinguishing, even when it’s miraculously positive for us. To live the feeling to the fullest, and to reach beyond it, without it managing the performance for us. Excessive analysis, or excessive attention to feeling, allows it to manage the performance. Denial of feeling works in a parallel way; we deny something we’re afraid of or embarrassed about, making up a story that’s bigger than the thing itself. Feeling -- in its beginning, middle and end, is only feeling, no less and no more. It’s only a color and it isn’t reality itself.
Thoughts are not facts
Let’s pause for a moment of silence. Out of the silence, let’s look at the thoughts that come to mind. Even when we’re seeking silence, thoughts exist. Usually we try to leave them behind for the benefit of silence, sometimes succeeding, but more often failing. Now we’ll focus on them, but from a lateral viewpoint -- examining ourselves as we think, aware of the different voices that our thoughts present. We can see that every thought starts from something, replaces another, develops, and then disappears to make room for a new one. … Thank you.
Thoughts are like voices inside our consciousness, voices that tell us various kinds of stories, analyzing, interpreting, reminding, confusing, and also clarifying and explaining. A changing amalgam of voices, very fast-moving, a thought can travel faster than light! The voices of thoughts may be encouraging, supportive, helpful to us; they may be neutral and practical, they can also be critical and judgmental, painful and disturbing. Sometimes these are voices which describe reality and help us to understand it and to act accordingly. Sometimes they can be voices that are detached from reality, with only the most illusory connection to it, and then they entice us in different directions, telling us all kinds of stories and convincing us that their story is the reality in which we live. The voices of thoughts and their stories generally arouse feelings to match them. The more the voice misleads us, the more the feeling matches the thought, a story full of emotion but deviating from reality and reflecting our self-centeredness. Obviously, feeling, for its part, engenders matching thoughts. A feeling that distorts reality only slightly is helped by thought to distort it even more, and we’ve moved even further away from reality.
There are many examples of this. Let’s remember instances where something went wrong for us, or we were afraid of making a mistake. Which voices were managing our consciousness? What did we tell ourselves? How hasty have we been, distancing ourselves from reality?
Ruth, a young lady in her twenties, sometimes suffered from panic-attacks when driving and was afraid she was going to cause an accident. There were times when the fear was so intense, she was forced to leave her vehicle at the roadside and continue her journey by public transport or wait for someone to come and pick her up. In these cases, an almost innocent voice would present itself in her consciousness -- “You’re going to cause an accident.” -- and the voice would rouse in her a feeling close to dread. The voices escalated, and the feeling turned into paralyzing fear, and then she heard an internal command: “Stop driving, at once. You can’t drive in this state.” When she stopped at the roadside, the fear grew even more intense. Sometimes after such an incident, the fear would continue for several days, during which she lived the frightening story she was telling herself, and from her point of view it turned into fact. In her story, she thought she was a failure, nothing would go well for her, and so on. The feeling and the thinking went hand in hand and led her into prolonged suffering. This is an extreme example, perhaps, but it shows very well what happens to us, because almost all of us have episodes like this, although usually on a smaller scale.
When we think one thought or another, including a thought that demeans us or is negative towards us, such as “I can’t succeed,” we identify entirely with the thought. We’re sure that it’s an objective description of the facts. The inner voices seem to us like the voices of reality and sometimes like its peremptory command. The idea that thoughts are the voices that tell us a story helps to separate thought from reality itself and to distinguish between them.
It’s possible to imagine thoughts, especially those that dominate us and want to lead us into certain behavior, as broadcasts from a powerful loudspeaker which we hear in our consciousness and not through our ears. Unfortunately, the loudspeaker is located outside us, so we have no chance of disconnecting it or halting its transmissions. In the first stages of awareness, we’re even unable to influence what it’s saying. It has a life and an agenda of its own, sometimes close to the reality in which we function and sometimes far from it.
What can we do to confront the thought that dominates consciousness? Part of what can be done we’ll describe in due course, when we address other tools. For now, we can remind ourselves of the motto, “Thoughts are not facts.” Repetition of this motto creates a change in the line of thought and helps us to see the thought from a lateral viewpoint and not to identify ourselves with it. In addition, we can activate the Serenity Prayer in a number of possible ways. One of these is repetition; repetition of
the prayer shifts the thought to a different, positive place that’s right for us. Activating the prayer also means understanding the situation in its light. For example, we can accept the fact that currently we don’t have the ability to stop or change thoughts, but we can stop listening to them, and crucially -- we can avoid acting in accordance with them. The moment an unwelcome thought tries to control us we should make an effort to abstain from the specific actions that the thought is pointing to.
For example, Ruth made the decision to abstain from stopping driving. The voice in her head scared her and continued to threaten her, but she went on driving, reciting the Serenity Prayer to herself and telling herself that this would pass. Then something unexpected happened -- the voice really did pass. Quite quickly. Ruth felt great relief and gratitude. Ruth told herself a new story with a new cycle of feeling and thought, exerting a positive influence. From an outsider’s perspective, the change sounds quite simple, and in principle it definitely is simple, but in our emotional experience, things look more complicated and it takes time before we succeed in simplifying them. For Ruth, the experience wasn’t simple, but she was brave and persistent, and the outcome was positive.
There are certain varieties of characteristic thought which usually create distortions of reality in us. These types of thought express self-centeredness and serve its interests. When they’re working, we are promoting self-centeredness; sometimes we may enjoy it, but usually it brings some kind of suffering with it. Therefore, it is helpful to know these characteristic thoughts in advance and to recognize them when in action.
Expectations are the kind of thought most liable to distort reality. Expectation, like a magic spell, takes us for a short excursion into the future that it creates for us. It’s as if we’re already living the future, in fantasy mode. For example, someone is expecting to receive something. From his point of view, he already has it. The acquisition is the excursion in time into the future, and he’s already enjoying the warm feeling. Wonderful, isn’t it? Well, almost. What happens when expectation doesn’t come true? The person feels really cheated, as if something that belonged to him has been stolen. People react in extreme ways when their expectations are not met, and from their point of view they have suffered real injury. For example, a woman comes home after a stressful day at work, while her partner has been at home all day. She’s expecting a welcome that will show appreciation of all her hard work, and she is looking forward to the tasty meal that he has prepared for her, but when she arrives, there’s no meal on the table. What a disappointment! As she sees it, her partner is showing her disrespect, not appreciating her as he should, and in short, he’s a total egoist. She could extend her story and remember how much she has done for him, and more. Maybe she’s right, maybe not. Because of the distortion of reality, it’s impossible to tell. She reckons she was deprived of something she deserved, and her thoughts are locked into a particular direction, looking for an allocation of blame. Feeling, for its part, adds color to the nasty picture, and their relationship is in total disarray.
Expectations can also be negative, as for example, when someone is expecting to fail an exam that’s scheduled to take place in a few days’ time. From his point of view, it’s as if he’s already travelling into the future after the distressing failure, and the negative sense of failure -- which hasn’t happened yet, and possibly never will -- is already afflicting him. Fear and dread are trying to paralyze him, and adding thoughts of self-blame, and perhaps referring to his lack of ability in other areas too, and other choice ingredients. Such a complication starts with a small negative expectation, like a voice that introduces itself to our consciousness, even with some courtesy, and when we listen to it, the dubious celebration takes over.
Positive expectations begin with a positive or indifferent feeling and can end with a feeling that is negative, even to an extreme degree, leading to negative behavior. Negative expectations begin with a negative feeling which accentuates and can create negative behavior, but what follows may be a pleasant surprise; for example, our exam candidate has not only passed, he’s even earned a distinction. This being the case, maybe it’s always worthwhile starting with negative expectations, because the pessimist can only be surprised by good news… Anyone who wants to live in a movie, go for it. Such a person will suffer for most of the movie and only be a little surprised in a good way at the end, until the next negative movie comes along, usually starting straightaway. A more successful option is suggested here, which is to identify the process and not to collaborate with it.
There are other modes of thought which distort reality, such as the imaginative fantasies that dominate us, irrelevant programs, distressing scenarios, and others. Among them are the opinions that we have -- opinions about ourselves, about others, or about the world.
It seems we have opinions about everything. But how often are we aware that this is only our opinion, it isn’t necessarily reality itself or the truth, and the opinions of others are no less legitimate than ours? Even when we are modest and say, “In my opinion...,” we expect that our opinion will be accepted by everyone, and those who oppose it are showing their ignorance. Opinion, especially the one we’re firmly locked into, is usually a thought that distorts reality and serves the purposes of self-centeredness and makes it stronger. Facts aren’t important to it, and even our opinions of ourselves allow self-centeredness to dominate our consciousness, through distorting reality and reinforcing our identification with the thought. For example, somebody says, “I know myself. This is what I’m like. I must…” It makes no difference what he says he must do, because he’s already locked into the reality that he has declared. With the declaration, flexibility has gone and there are no alternative possibilities. It’s possible that he’s right, more likely that he’s wrong. Why isn’t he right? Because usually there are more possibilities open to us than the ones that we declare. Such declarations as these are only thoughts, expressing dominant self-centeredness and thoughts are not facts, as we have said.
One of the tried and tested ways of giving up thoughts that force themselves and try to take us over and induce us to act, is the knowledge that they are transient, and their story is temporary. When they rise up in our consciousness like a voice purporting to present reality, they seem like almost eternal facts. We see no other possibility. But they are, in fact, temporary, changeable and transient. They can even pass very quickly when we give them up. The distinction between facts and the conglomeration of thoughts that dress themselves up as facts, helps us to let go of the thoughts and of the whole story, to remember they are transient and enable them to pass and go on their way. It is advisable to tell ourselves, “This will pass” and also to remind ourselves that this is only a thought, and thoughts aren’t facts. In addition to holding on to thoughts, we also “feed” them, adding details of our own to the story and thus aggravating our situation. The knowledge that thoughts are transient helps us to let go and not feed them.
Another useful distinction is the knowledge that thought is only thought, something crafted by our consciousness, but it isn’t us. A thought is just a story that we tell ourselves; however, we are not this story and despite the strong temptation to identify with it, it is possible to abstain from this identification. Since the source of the story is usually our consciousness or the processes of our brains, it’s possible to declare in all simplicity that we are not our brains. The psychiatrist Jeff Schwarz instructed his clients suffering from obsessive-compulsive thoughts or behaviors to do this, and he examined the process that they had gone through in interesting research, which showed a marked reduction of symptoms in the space of a few weeks. When we are not identifying with a thought and we only observe it as if it were a voice from a source external to us, we’re not nourishing it; therefore, it’s easier for the thought to go on its way. Even analysis of thoughts means clinging to them, a way of making a story out of them. What’s being offered here is something else entirely -- to
leave aside the obsession with thought, and just observe it from the side and know that it’s only a thought, only a voice, only a story that we tell ourselves, and the story will pass because it isn’t reality. The more we allow thoughts to pass on, without dwelling on them, the more clearly reality itself will be revealed to us. Then we can use thoughts wisely to function better in reality, instead of thoughts using us and distancing us from reality.
The way to get to this is a practice presented here in combination with other tools, such as abstaining from certain unwanted actions, using the Serenity Prayer, and cultivating gratitude as an answer to unwelcome thoughts. The tool, “Gratitude” offers a way of raising the conceptual material that we want into our consciousness, which helps us to divert our attention from unwanted thoughts. Implementing gratitude means replacing a story of deficiency and of “I don’t have,” or conversely, a grandiose and unrealistic story, with a story anchored in reality, but painted in the pleasant color of gratitude and of “I have.” It’s possible to see the process as a contest between different voices. Which will prove to be stronger? The voice that we nourish with our attention, to which we listen. We arouse the voices of the Serenity Prayer and of gratitude and listen to them. Our attention strengthens them and the unwanted thought passes, in its time. On condition, obviously, that we abandon our hope that it will pass and stop checking to see if it has passed, since then we would be nourishing it, clinging to it, and strengthening it. We’re simply not interested in the thought, only in gratitude, in the Serenity Prayer or in anything else that could anchor us in the reality which we inhabit, offering help to others, for example. In order to internalize the choice of these actions of change which are done in times of distress, we can do them at the end of every day and at any time when we’re not under stress. Thus, we’ll get used to the idea that we can look at thought from the side and be aware that it has arisen and it will pass. We can also summon up a different thought, more agreeable to us, and stronger too.