The Key to Observing Your Thoughts

Most of the time, in our day-to-day lives, we are lost in thought, pondering various ideas without actively observing them. We are not consciously witnessing or listening to our thoughts. If we were to ask ourselves what we were thinking about a minute ago, most of the time, unless we’ve been fixated on something all day, we’d have no idea.

This stems from the illusion that we are our thoughts and that the voice in our head is our true identity. Thus, there seems to be no need to observe them because we identify with them.

It’s as if we all had a voice in the back of our head that we assumed was us, or with which we identified, then we would not feel the need to monitor it because it is us.

However, as soon as we realize that it is simply the egoic thinking part of our brain—a distinct aspect of ourselves, akin to our hand—we can begin to observe it more objectively.

It operates in a very specific way, pulling from our subconscious and unconscious parts of the brain, making it unpredictable and beyond our control. Everything we think stems from our memories, emotional state, and external stimuli that we may not even be consciously aware of.

This unconscious, mysterious aspect of the mind seeps into our conscious awareness through thoughts that we can become aware of.

As we realize that the ego, the thinking mind, is primarily focused on avoiding danger, survival, and resource acquisition, we understand its roots in fear. It obsesses over negative experiences, causing much of the suffering in our lives. In modern, safe society, it doesn’t need to be so hyper-vigilant, constantly searching for danger.

We need to recognize two things:

A. It’s not who we really are, that these are not the thoughts we would think if we were thinking consciously with our greatest intentions, which would be of course to think things that generate feelings of peace and joy, and loving emotions.

B. That these thoughts do cause a great deal of suffering, and actually need to be watched, observed and monitored very closely.

The key to observing our thoughts is dis-identifying with them, and re-identifying with the witness. Because there aren’t two selves inside of us. There isn’t a witness and observer of our thoughts and the thinking mind; the thinking mind is a form that can be perceived by consciousness, our true self. These forms, whether they are sensed objects that we perceive with our fingers, eyes, and ears, are anything we experience as we go about our daily life.

Or, if we turn our attention inward, close our eyes, observe our thoughts, observe our feelings, and sensations within our body.

These are all things that arise within our conscious frame of awareness. Most of the time, while we are going about our day-to-day activities, we are putting all of our focus outside of us. We are focusing primarily on whatever is going on in front of us; our attention is projected outward.

We usually become unaware of our thoughts, unaware of how they are negative, often repetitive, and creating a narrative for whatever is happening around us, which, in fact, makes us unable to see reality as it really is. Because instead of letting whatever happens be, we create a story that what we are seeing is either good or bad.

Often, we find the negative because that is what these survival machines inside of us, that survival mechanism, has done so that we could survive, so that we would run away from tigers, and not go too close to cliffs, and be wary of any risks and dangers in the natural world.

Naturally, these thinking machines inside of us are going to fixate and obsess over anything negative that they can latch onto.

They will imagine the worst dangers, the most frightening scenarios, oftentimes the worst possible imagined future.

We first have to become aware of the tricks that the mind plays. We have to be aware that we’re not in danger, that these fears are all in our head. Of course, if you’re camping in the woods, or if you’re in a dangerous neighborhood at night, you might need to listen to that inner threat warning.

But most of the time, when we’re relaxing, or we’re at work, or we’re stuck in traffic, that negative voice goes into overdrive, because it doesn’t know the difference between stress from a job and stress from a tiger.

We can easily find ourselves going down these negative downward spirals of just a horrible train of thought that we can’t get ourselves out of because our whole body state is in a stress response fight-or-flight mode.

Oftentimes, when we have prolonged fight-or-flight mode, and we’re not fighting, and we’re not fleeing because there is no actual physical danger, this often turns into depression, which is kind of a third stress response. Prolonged fight-or-flight can turn into this third stress response, which is kind of like when an animal plays dead.

This is the third survival mode instinct that even humans have hardwired into us. This is why when we get depressed, we feel unable to get out of bed and unable to do anything, even though we know we should.

Even though people are trying to get us out of it, nothing can because we are in this natural state of essentially playing dead as a survival tactic.

When fight or flight hasn’t been able to help us because that’s not the correct response. Before I get into what we can do about that.

A lot of people wonder, why are our brains wired like this? Are we defective? Why have we been made so dysfunctionally? And the answer, of course, is we have not. The fact of the matter is when we were evolving, when we became modern humans, and we were still living in the wild. This was an appropriate stress response.

We didn’t have iPads, smartphones, TV, film, radio, card games, board games, and all of these attention industries. No video games, there was nothing to distract us. And so we were able to naturally rest and relax and be witness to our thoughts.

In fact, it’s believed that before modern agriculture, we would hunt, forage, and gather food for only a few hours a day, and we had a lot more leisure time. Then, when civilizations and modern farming practices came about, a lot less people and a lot less food was needed. It grew on its own.

So sitting around leisurely, meditating, was kind of a natural thing back then. We lived in tight-knit communities, there was no crime, we would dance and sing around the fire. If there was a moment of stress, like an elephant nearby or a challenging hunt took place, there was plenty of time to allow the body to rest and recover from that stress response.

Without magazines, books, and iPods, there was no escaping their thoughts and their feelings. So they were their own higher wisdom, and consciousness; they were witnessing presence for their thoughts and feelings.

This allowed them a much greater sense of peace. Because they were fully present, fully relaxed, yet alert was their natural state of being. It is also every animal’s state of being; a deer may have a moment of stress if there is a predator nearby.

But it is always alert, yet relaxed, as its natural baseline state of being. This is our birthright as well. And just because we live in the age of endless entertainment, endless distraction, we can get back to that state. So how do we observe our thoughts?

There are two ways. Really, both are essential to maintaining a sense of peace and happiness, despite whatever our thinking mind is doing.