Don't Believe Everything You Think

by Joseph Nguyen

you cannot think your way into flow just as much as you cannot think your way into love both are a natural occurrence when we let go and allow the full authentic expression of ourselves to come forth they are a byproduct of surrender and trust

Let go

There are two sources of goals: goals created out of inspiration and goals created out of desperation.

When goals are created out of desperation, we feel an immense sense of scarcity and urgency. They feel heavy, like a burden, and we may feel daunted by the colossal task we’ve just committed ourselves to. Impostor syndrome and self-doubt begin to manifest, and we feel like we’re always short on time. We go about our lives frantically, desperately searching for ways to accomplish our goals faster, always looking externally to fill the void we feel internally. Worst of all, if we achieve the goal, soon after, all those feelings of lack begin to resurface again. We start feeling discontented with what we’ve done, unable to savor our accomplishments, and because what we did never feels like it’s enough, we feel that same way about ourselves. Not knowing what else to do, we look at what others are doing for guidance and see that they’re continuing to do the same thing. Thus, we proceed to set another goal out of desperation in an attempt to escape all of the negative feelings gnawing away at our souls.

An example of this would be having a goal of becoming famous in order to finally feel significant. Unless you address the internal root worry that you’re not good enough, achieving this external goal will never change how you feel.

When we create goals out of inspiration, it’s an entirely different story. In this state, we are creating because we feel deeply moved, inspired, and expansive. Our goals feel like a calling rather than an obligation.

What did you dream of doing when you were a kid? How would it feel just to do it for fun to any degree you can? This will reveal to you some of the goals of inspiration you may have forgotten about.

When we create goals out of inspiration, we are not creating from a place of lack. We don’t create because we feel like we have to or we need more. We create because we want to.

A simple way to know if a goal or dream is created out of inspiration is to remember the distinction between thoughts and thinking. Goals and dreams that come in the form of thought are created out of inspiration. Goals and dreams that come from thinking are created out of desperation.

Goals from desperation are typically rooted in fear and make your happiness conditional on achieving them. Goals from inspiration are rooted in love and focus more on the joy of doing over the outcome. The joy comes from the act itself, not just what you externally get out of it. The reason why you create the goal will determine how you will feel while pursuing it. Goals of inspiration come from identifying what you value and what is most important to you. Is it security? Raising a loving family? Traveling? Creativity? Learning? Peace? Expressing yourself? Goals of inspiration are aligned with your values, while goals of desperation contradict them.

For an author who values their craft but feels driven by a sense of insecurity, an example of a goal created from desperation would be to want to hit the bestseller list because it would finally make them feel like they were good enough. A goal created from inspiration would be to write a book because they love the act of writing with their whole being. The first goal was created to try to prove they are good at what they do (external validation), and the second was created because they simply love what they do. The second aligns with their values, while the first does not. But for an author who primarily values spreading their message as far as possible, the opposite might be true. For this person, reaching the bestseller list could be a goal of inspiration. It all depends on understanding our own personal value systems.

What matters is the source of the goal, not necessarily the goal itself.

If I had infinite money, had no fear, and didn’t feel the need to receive any recognition, what would I do or create?

The truth is rarely in the extremes but somewhere in between.

When we make decisions, we want to rely on non-thinking. The more we try to think, analyze, and ask for outside opinions, the more it causes unnecessary anxiety and frustration. Most of the time, we already know deep down what to do. This is often referred to as your intuition, gut feeling, or inner wisdom. When we seek outside counsel, we’re actually just looking to confirm what our intuition is already telling us. But inviting an outside opinion will more than likely lead to more self-doubt. Only you can know what is right for you. No one else can tell you this. There will be mentors and teachers who can offer guidance, but the best ones will tell you to listen to your intuition and look within yourself for the answer. The truth is only ever within you. This is why many of us experience regret after following another’s advice. Deep down, we know we shouldn’t have ignored our instincts.

Thinking about this in terms of my relationship

Instead of trying to make a decision based on whether something is right or wrong, good or bad, make it based on the decision that feels most expansive and aligned with who you are and what you value most. Your intuition will tell you what that choice is when you ask.

Nothing that grows can stay the same—especially you. Diving in headfirst to explore the unknown is something humans were created to do and cannot resist. The unknown is where we feel most alive. Although our minds crave certainty, our hearts desire freedom. We live in an illusion of certainty. Most of what we have can be lost or taken away at a moment’s notice. We all know the only constant is change, yet we spend most of our energy trying to fight what is natural and inevitable and wonder why we are suffering so much. It is not change that we should fear but staying the same.

wow!!!

At this point, most people give up or continue down the path of brute force to try to bring it to life and suffer daily for it. We tell ourselves we must suffer for what we want, but that is not true if we trust our intuition instead. Our job is determining what we want, not necessarily how to get it. The how is up to the Universe, and delegating this responsibility is ideal because there are an infinite number of ways to bring about what we want in life.

So why don’t more people listen to their intuition? Because of fear.

You are here to learn, grow, and love—and many times, doing what will help you grow the most will make others around you uncomfortable because they are not ready for it. And that is okay, because everyone grows on their own time. But you don’t have to let other people’s fears become your reality. Don’t let them stop you from doing what makes you feel alive and inspired.

Dont let other peoples fears become my reality

“Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the great German philosophers of the nineteenth century who revolutionized the way we view morality and religion, had a routine practice for creating space to aid him in generating ideas. He would go on extensive walks in the middle of writing his books and would bring a small notepad with him to jot down ideas he thought of during his stroll.

Albert Einstein was a scientific genius who similarly knew the importance of this concept. When Einstein was stuck on a difficult problem, he would stop working on it and play the violin instead. As he played, the answer would spontaneously come to him not from force but from calming the mind and creating space for inspiration to flow.

If you have been living in a state of fight or flight for a while, you may have become so used to the feeling of anxiety that it feels “normal.” Living your life without as many of those feelings will understandably feel different and strange. This is all normal and is simply a growing pain that will dissipate with time. As you continue to live your life in non-thinking, peace will become your new normal.

Make PEACE the norm

A common misconception is that practicing non-thinking means avoiding and ignoring reality or that it means walking through life with your blinders on. But it is the exact opposite. Living life through non-thinking is accepting reality as it is instead of what we think it should be.

Sometims people drag you thrugh metal gymnastics to create a certain reality

A reason that we may feel anxiety, worry, and doubt once we experience peace is that thinking all the time uses a colossal amount of time and energy. Most of us are used to spending the majority of our day in a state of stress (thinking). When we stop thinking, the energy we used to spend thinking is now “freed up,” but it hasn’t been directed anywhere yet, so we tend to return to our old patterns of funneling that energy back into thinking, because that is how we were conditioned and what feels familiar. What we can do instead is channel the newfound energy into our goals of inspiration.

What tends to help many people in this stage is to have an “activation ritual.” An activation ritual is a morning routine that helps them get into a state of non-thinking and flow. It can be any activity or routine that helps you feel grounded and allows you to practice getting into a state of non-thinking. Examples might be exercising, meditating, performing breathwork, praying, journaling, or making tea. It does not matter what the activity is as long as it helps you feel centered. An activation ritual enables you to build momentum in a positive direction immediately when you wake up so that it’s easier to stay in that state of non-thinking for the rest of the day. An object in motion will stay in motion. I never understood why spiritual masters have morning routines until I understood the power of momentum and grounding to aid non-thinking.

Meditate in the morning. Run. Warm water

you begin to feel like something’s wrong because you feel way too peaceful and content, know that it’s only your mind trying to make you think again. Your mind is the greatest salesperson and knows exactly what to say to lure you back into its vicious cycle of destructive thinking. It is in this moment that you have the choice to have faith in the unknown and stay in the feeling of happiness, peace, and love or to go back to the old patterns of familiar pain and psychological suffering. We can either choose to be free and happy in the unknown or choose to be confined and suffer in the familiar.

Instead of asking myself why Makenna couldn’t list any reasons why she loved me, I asked myself, Do I love her because of her laugh or because she loves helping others? What happens if she doesn’t laugh one day or doesn’t help someone that day? Do I stop loving her if she doesn’t do the things I said I loved about her? I realized that if I create reasons for why I love her, then it makes my love for her conditional on those specific traits or actions, as if I would stop loving her if she doesn’t do them. This, of course, is not true. At that moment, I finally realized that Makenna couldn’t list reasons why she loved me because her love for me was unconditional. While there are things she loves about me, there are no reasons why she loves me. If she had reasons, it would mean she only loved me if I were exemplifying those traits.

This is deep!

When we let go of needing reasons to love one another, there is no end to how much love we can discover.

courage is not the absence of fear but the presence of love in the midst of fear

Everything we want is on the other side of fear. The way out is by going deep within yourself to see and know that you will be okay no matter what. You might not be able to eliminate the fear, but you can recognize that this fear cannot and will not kill you. Yet if you listen to it, it will take the life of your dreams instead. Fear is only an emotion, one that you are more than strong enough to hold space for.

Although our fear will tell us that we are afraid of external things, such as a negative event, really what we fear is how we imagine we’ll feel if an undesired outcome happens. Fear is internal, not external. This is great news because we can always change and let go of what is internal. To overcome fear, you must question what it is you are truly afraid of and then see the truth behind this fear—that it is an illusion designed to keep us in our comfort zones and nothing more. It is only when we see what is actually happening in our minds that we can let go of it to be free. Most of the time, when we feel fear, we try to suppress or avoid it, which only ends up magnifying the fear and giving it more power. When we have the courage to accept and examine our fears and look at the truth beyond our thinking, the illusion of the fear dissolves, and we fall back into peace.

This…wow. Great insight