Breaking excessive thinking 💗💖

There is always talk around the country and the world about addictive behaviors, usually referring to a substance. However, one of the biggest addictions has never actually been brought up. You dont hear about it on the news or read it anywhere because the people who are addicted to it don't know it. It is the addiction to thinking. It is actually addictive. You can't stop thinking like you can't stop drinking and can't stop smoking.

It's an addiction because it's like a drug, but just has been around so long and it's a pseudo sense of self. There is a great reluctance on the part of people to let go of thinking which is equated with the state of sleep. Don't try to understand more than what's there-there isn't that much to understand. The main thing about it is presence because presence is the space of no thought. Presence can be there in the background even if thinking is happening and still not be completely involved in the thinking. Thinking loses the ability to create havoc in your life and confuse you.

Your choice then is not to understand more or bring some intellectual analysis to the practice, but to practice the state of not thinking which can be arrived at as various ways -don't think about it, just do it, becoming aware of the present moment and accept it as it is slows down the overactive mind.

A lot of the overactivity of the mind is an attempt to get away from the isness and the simplicity of the present moment. To become more aware of the present, make little notes and pointers to yourself in your home or in your car because there are different entry points into the present moment. Present moment awareness means the thinking subsides. It may not disappear completely, but something else arises that is primary-we call it presence or awareness.

But how do you become conscious of the present moment? After a while you can actually sense the presence of the present so to speak and directly-there it is. Helpful things are sense perceptions. They take you out of thinking IF you are not judging the sense perceptions (enabling/naming). Wherever you are, anywhere, look around and practice sense perceptions without this compulsive interference with naming what you are perceiving. See what it means to perceive without concepts or words.

Let's use right now as an example. Between NOW.......and.........NOW, were you thinking? What I am telling you now is secondary. What is primary is the underlying state of consciousness, presence. A sign that it is working is while you listen there's no thought, just an alert presence. If your mind wanders, you can acknowledge the thought, but come back to presence. So your priority is no longer to follow the thought to wherever it takes you.

The thought has a magnetic pull. It wants more of your consciousness, it wants to grow so it wants more attention. In suddle ways it tries to get your attention. It might even use a bodily feeling to distract you. You follow it, the presence is gone and you are gone. If you're not careful and don't use the mechanism, not so much an intellectual understanding, but a simple realization that this is what the mind does-it tries to pull you in. Once you know that, you can allow thought to arise without following it because it only wants to go to a bigger and bigger thought. Sometimes you can follow a thought and wake up twenty minutes later and it started with a small thought and ended up with you thinking how dreadful your life is.

I wish all of you love and happiness, you beautiful beings!💖
Love,
Kristan 💞