When we face our pain-producing thoughts and deal with them by asking The Four Questions and the Turnaround ( see Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is) then we deal with negative thoughts without kindness – tough love – asking “Is it true?” Can you be absolutely sure that it is true?” “How do you react when you think that though?” “Who would you be without that though?” — these questions make space on the hard-drive of my life the way emptying my computer’s memory can open a massive space for new, fresh, true, good, creative thoughts.
Suffering is not just in our heads. But we do, too often, suffer because of what is in our heads. Having negative thoughts is one thing. Believing them or sitting with them is quite another.
John Chrysostomos, a famous saint once said, It is one thing to let a bird fly over your head. It is quite another to let it build a nest in your hair.
