P.O. Box 2285
Framingham, MA 01703


	Home About Contact

40. Write It Down

(A Simple and Superb Process)

Here's the way it is: you are feeling just fine and then you're not. What happened? What happened was a thought occurred that caused you some variant of fear. What you do at that point is your business but I have a suggestion that will uplift you every time you use it.

What you do is write down the thought. Don't write an essay. Just the simple thought. My typical fear-thoughts run along these lines: I'm getting old and no one listens to me, Being optimistic is stupid and naïve, I've had my fun and now I must pay, Waiting for something to happen will grind me down, I'm frozen and if I don't move I'm safe. They obviously reflect my age. Yours will reflect your age/experience.

I further recommend that you save that slip of paper. Put it somewhere so you can read it later or tomorrow.

What do you get out of this exercise? In short, you get peace. Forget the theory and just do it.

Some Theory and Explanations
Writing focuses the mind. Writing it down gets the thought out of the abstract. You can now easily examine the thought if you want. If you do, I recommend Byron Katie's famous four examining questions. (Is the thought true? Is it really true? How does it make you feel? Who (or what) would you be without it?)

You don't have to examine the thought. You don't have to find the history or the effects of it. The simple act of writing it down will dissipate the thought automatically. The next time you look at that thought it will have less impact on you. In a week you will have trouble remembering why you even wrote it.

Many will say, psychologists usually, that you must examine the why's and wherefore's of a thought before it will be erased. That is simply not true because you can never be absolutely sure of the why and wherefore that you come up with. The relief you feel when you get the, "Aha, it was my doctor (father, thunderstorm, boss, etc.) occurs purely because you recognized and confronted the thought as a thought, not the history.

More Theory and Explanations
The act of writing is an act of confrontation that has only beneficial results. The confronting itself is the beneficial part because the real you, the Spirit-You, not the Body-You, is doing the confronting. That is extremely, repeat extremely, self-validating. That act of validation resets the correct relationship between the Spirit-You and the Body-You.

Any thought, good or bad, can be examined. Any thought will be found to be unprovable. But what the hell, good thoughts aren't bothering you, only bad thoughts are. When you keep weeding out the bad ones all you have left is the good ones and lots of energy to enjoy them. Bad thoughts use up a lot of energy and make you tired, bored, lazy and unhappy.

I am persuaded that the number of fear-producing thoughts is limited. Someone, probably some famous playwright like Aristophanes or Shakespeare, once said that there are only six (6) plots and only thirty-six (36) situations. I have no data to back that up. No statistical data of any kind. If you, dear reader, will e-mail me saying this technique worked (or it didn't) I will collect, correlate and publish it to show the limited number of human fears. I suspect the number is much less than one hundred.

I leave you with something that Buddha purportedly said thousands of years ago, "The no-mind not-thinks no-thoughts about no-things". Buddha's English wasn't too good but the saying accurately describes the value of bad thoughts.

<< Back Table of Contents Next >>