Beneath The Surface of Mind

Beneath The Surface of Mind
This post was published on the now-closed HuffPost Contributor platform. Contributors control their own work and posted freely to our site. If you need to flag this entry as abusive, send us an email.
“Succumbo” from the series In Landscapes | by petroskoublis.com

“Succumbo” from the series In Landscapes | by petroskoublis.com

PETROS KOUBLIS

Why do some thoughts hurt your heart?

When a painful thought arises and manifests itself as a stressful emotional state, ask yourself why is it happening. Do not focus on the cause, but instead bring your attention only to your own reaction. Why is it necessary for you to experience this? Do not regard this ache as something justified. Look inside of your heart and sincerely ask why is it happening. Try not to react, but take some time to ask yourself why.

Where are these emotions coming from? When you face this question, most likely you will look for an answer in the outside conditions of your life. You may feel that such emotional reactions are due to past events that left a mark behind them. Perhaps you are nervous, afraid of future events and their consequences. It could be the unfulfilled desires that still burn inside of your heart. In any case, you may feel that the perspective of the outside world will automatically justify these feelings. Your mind may force to you believe that this point of view is enough of an answer and there is nothing left to investigate further. The question is answered, the pain is justified.

We all experience life, so we all fundamentally know that life equals endless potential. We know that life can take a different route and reveal a different face at any given time. This knowledge is exactly what we call hope. You know that the possibilities are endless and life can fulfill all of your needs and desires in just one instant. Sometimes it takes only one moment to see even your wildest dreams come true. You know this by instinct, because life is not something independent from you, Life is you.

This inner knowledge was meant to release the potential of our mind and help us break through our limits. But it can also facilitate our discomfort if we fall victim to our conditioning. The mind reminds you of the things you lack and eventually, instead of evolving, you start to identify yourself with your weaknesses. Life is there but you feel that you just can't claim it. Your mind makes you feel incomplete, as if you have missed something important. The thing that generates this kind of turbulence is the identification with your thoughts. The things you lack are not your weaknesses, they are your potential. In order f to understand these emotions, we have to understand the nature of this mental process.

The activity that takes place inside of the mind manifests as feelings in your heart. When the activity seizes all emotions seize as well. When it becomes active, feelings becomes more intense. It is impossible to feel pain when painful thoughts are not present. The conditions of your life, no matter how problematic they are, cannot be the only answer for this. For long periods these conditions remain stable, but the pain doesn't. It comes and goes as your thoughts come and go.

If we examine this further, we will find that thoughts can have a painful impact without being necessary related to a negative event. An emotional turbulence can arise in relation with positive aspects of life, or even with people you love. These thoughts can make you feel irritated by the things that would normally make you feel secure. When they arise they make you feel bothered by the conditions of what you believed to be your happiness. Then, when the thoughts seize, these emotions seize too. And when they return again, the pain returns with them.

Why do thoughts have the ability to cause pain? The conditions of life is not the easy answer. Both negative and positive events can become subject of stressful thoughts. Since it's hard to clearly define the cause, we believe this to be an aspect of our temperament and we identify ourselves with it. Because we are not able to fully explain how and why our emotional state constantly changes, we believe it to be a free expression of our character. Deep inside of us, we believe that our thoughts are related to our personality.

This is the only thing you have to let go. The idea of your personality, the conception of who you think you are. The conditioning that forces you to believe that your thoughts are an expression of yourself. Everything you think or feel is a result of this idea. The way you behave is the way your heart reacts to this conditioning. What you believe to be your personality is only the relationship between your mind and your heart. What you believe to be your character is only a conflict. The one between the thoughts that rise in your mind and the reaction that takes place in the heart.

This is what generates the pain. This is its source, its cause, its nature.

The only thing you have to leave behind is what you believed yourself to be.

What you mistook for your true self.

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot