How do you suggest breaking free from the ego’s thought system? It often feels like an ongoing burden to me that I tend to avoid until I can’t anymore.
Like many questions we ask on our spiritual journey, the answer is quite simple, but since the information is getting filtered through the very distorted lens of the ‘ego mind thought system’ we usually need a bit more to chew on, there needs to be a bit more elaboration.
But in a nutshell, the way to break free from the ego’s thought system is simply making the choice to do so. The crux of our ‘spiritual journey’ no matter how one is going about it, no matter what teachings are serving as the blueprint, no matter what tools or techniques are being employed, is making a conscious choice to abide by the ‘spirit thought system’–or whatever you want to call all those ideas–rather than the ‘ego thought system.’
The reason this is the ‘crux’ of the matter is because everything stems from what we are thinking–it determines how we feel, it determines the choices we make, it determines how we interact with every other human on this planet, it determines how we respond to the challenges in our lives, it determines our worldview, it determines our self-image…the list could go on and on.
On one hand, that the core action required of us is something as simple as choice is good news. But on the other hand, our action-loving mind may find that answer unsatisfactory. Perhaps it seems too simple. Perhaps you believe you have been trying to make that choice but not succeeding. Perhaps you have not been trying very hard to make that choice and you know that needs to change.
Regardless, here are a few key things to guide you in this process…
It is Not a One and Done Choice
In theory, the choice between the two thought systems could be a one-time thing. You decide in one powerful moment to abandon the thought system which has caused you so much suffering and choose the thought system which offers you a way out of all that suffering.
But in reality, it usually doesn’t play out that way. In reality, this is a choice we will find ourselves having to consciously make over and over again.
We are contending with very deep conditioning that has a lot of momentum behind it. We are very used to thinking about things in certain ways, and these responses are always locked and loaded, ready to be unleashed in the mind immediately any time it sees an opportunity. If we have been looking at a particular situation a certain way for decades, if we have held a general belief about X for decades, we probably won’t be able to let it go overnight.
As time goes on, it gets easier to choose in favor of the more beneficial thought system. That way of thinking becomes more automatic, and it may not even feel like much of a choice anymore–it is just how you naturally start to view things, it is just how you naturally start to respond.
But this experience may not be ‘even’ across the board. You may find it easier to apply these ideas in certain situations or areas of life than others; you may find it easier to apply these ideas to certain people than others. That is all just part of it and it’s fine. So long as you remain committed, you can see movement all around.
Why Are You Resisting The Choice?
‘Spirit thought system’ ideas sound a hell of a lot better than ‘ego thought system’ ideas so it seems strange that we struggle so much with choosing the former in favor of the latter. The former offers us peace, love, joy, ease and freedom. The latter offers us guilt, shame, anger, depression, frustration, anxiety, fear, sadness and self-loathing.
So what gives?
The ego mind is a strange creature and operates in all manner of crazy ways. And it manages to convince us there is value in thinking the way it thinks. It is very good at making you feel ‘offended’ at the thought that its way of thinking is problematic, and not only gets you to fight for this awful way of looking at things, but to double down on it in the face of this questioning, to dig your heels in every more deeply, which just entrenches the suffering even more.
Getting any useful answers about why you resist this changing of your mind requires a very strong willingness to engage in honest–brutally honest–self-reflection. You have to really get into that space and see why you are so resistant to changing your thinking.
And if your first thought is that you are not resistant, you are lying to yourself–sounds harsh but it’s true. Sure on the surface you appear all eager and willing because you want to stop suffering, but deep down, it is a different story.
You must see some value in this thought system or you would have a much easier time letting it go. So what do you value about the beliefs you are holding now? What do you think they get you?
If you relish feeling like a victim for example, you will obviously be very resistant to any ideas that would not make you feel that way. If you relish feeling superior to other people, if you like hating certain groups of people, you obviously will not be very open to any idea that requires you to take a more charitable view of such people.
Our beliefs are much more than thoughts floating around in our heads–to the ego mind, they are an intricate part of our being, and letting them go represents so much more than changing the words in our head, it would mean ‘eliminating’ parts of ourselves, and that is very scary to it.
Who would you be without that story? Who would you be without your anger, fear, bitterness or resentment?
In many ways, we view our negative thinking like some kind of security blanket. That extremely distorted part of our mind believes being happy is unsafe, that we are more likely to be blindsided by something terrible if we aren’t on the lookout for it. If we are already kind of unhappy, if other bad things happen, it won’t feel so bad. But if we are happy and peaceful, and something ‘bad’ happens, it will feel a lot worse since the contrast will be much stronger. This was a major issue for me that I had to work through.
So, seeing what lies at the root of that resistance is a major piece of the puzzle for being able to break free of the grip of this thought system because right now, there is a part of you that doesn’t want to break free of it. And you really won’t do something you actually don’t want to do.
Creating Space
Spiritual teachings are not like quantum physics or another advanced sorts of teachings. There aren’t any complex formulas to work through. They are pretty simple and straightforward. Sure, we can read more in-depth about certain ideas. Different teachers of all this stuff have their own style of talking about these ideas, their own perspectives, their own advice for practical implementation,etc…
But that doesn’t change the fact the ideas in and of themselves, are again, pretty simple and straightforward. So this means the answer really doesn’t lie in having to educate yourself more about them.
The answer lies in making space within your being for them to take root more deeply. We need to find a way to internalize them to the point where they are just not ideas floating around in the mind, where they are not just things we intellectually appreciate and accept, but where they are actually having a material impact on our lives, where they are actually guiding our decisions and influencing how we feel.
And the only way to make that space is clearing out the crap that is currently occupying it. We have to go within and see what is there. We have to be honest with ourselves about what we are really feeling and thinking, and we must do this without guilt, shame or judgment.
If we keep pretending that everything is fine, if we keep doing all this work as nothing more than some sort of intellectual ‘entertainment’ nothing can really change.
It is all too common for people on this sort of ‘path’ to use spiritual teachings as a way to avoid dealing with our feelings. We are very quick to tell ourselves how we ‘should’ think and ‘should’ feel in a given situation, but it often does not match what we are actually thinking and feeling, and it just gets suppressed and remains unexamined.
We pretend we aren’t angry or sad or whatever other bad feeling because we think we ‘should not’ be feeling these things because that means we aren’t employing the ‘spiritual perspective’ on the situation.
And yes, the suggested ways to feel about, and handle, the situations are great. But if we suppress our feelings and lie to ourselves, we will never really truly have those emotional responses in any meaningful, genuine way because the beliefs and interpretations that would help create those emotions are not deeply rooted enough in the mind.
The good news is you don’t need to fully displace the crap, you just need to make at least a little space to start. And from there, you build some momentum and it gets easier. But like I mentioned earlier, we have to have a sense of what we are unwilling to displace to make room for these ideas, what we are choosing instead.
The feeling of the feelings is very important because when they remain within us, they just strengthen the beliefs creating them, which then strengthen the feelings. It is a vicious cycle, and this is the only way to break it.
Have a question and would like my two cents? Shoot me an email at kellicooper1102@gmail.com. Would love to hear from you!
https://www.livelifemadetoorder.com/blog/how-can-i-let-go-of-my-painful-thoughts-and-beliefs/
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