Watching Thoughts
You needn’t always act on your thoughts
/
sometimes, you should just watch them
These notes go in sequence, so you may want to read 1 and 2, before this one. Paying Attention recommends paying attention to what is happening within and around us. How to Pay Attention describes how to pay better attention. This note says that we can benefit by watching our thoughts instead of acting on them.
We are mostly not aware of our thoughts. When I ask my participants to list thoughts going through them, they look at me blankly. But when we look for them, we find many thoughts. They seem to follow, rapid-fire, one after the other.
As an example, it’s 10 am now, and my windows are open to the heat and sunshine. A bird flies by shrieking loudly and I feel irritated because I am trying to concentrate. Then I think –
“I should shut the window and turn on the air conditioner”
“But the coronavirus dies in heat and humidity”
“I should leave the hot air circulating”
“I haven’t eaten anything this morning”
“I notice some pangs of hunger”
“I’m fasting until lunch”
“I’m willing myself into feeling good about not eating”
“But I have been 156 lbs. after many years”
“Maybe eating a little early won’t hurt me”
We shouldn’t trust all our thoughts…
We have a lot of thoughts. We notice only a tiny fraction of them. I read once that an awake brain may have 11 million stimuli (thoughts) go through it every second. Only 40 of these will reach consciousness.
With so many thoughts, it’s not clear which you should act upon. Many may be entirely without any factual basis. Researchers showed that our brains fill in gaps in information with data that feels plausible. We are unaware of this, so we believe what we think.
This can be dangerous. My son discovered he didn’t really have until Monday for his assignment, he had imagined it. My wife was bewildered to learn I thought she had been rude to me. I thought the coronavirus lasted a very short while on cardboard. I was wrong, it lasts longer on cardboard than many other surfaces.
We know now that our thoughts are biased. I may have believed the coronavirus doesn’t last on cardboard, because I wanted to believe that home deliveries in cardboard containers were safe. I was biased by my self-interest.
But knowing our thoughts can be biased will not always protect us. In a calm state of mind, we can correct for biases. But we don’t always have calm minds. Sometimes we are stressed. At such times, thoughts go through us too fast for us to act on what we know about biased thoughts.
Someone I once coached, related this incident to me.
“My competitor for a promotion was sitting next to our mutual boss at a presentation I made. Our boss would have a say in who got the promotion. While I was speaking, my competitor leaned over and made a comment to our boss and the two of them smiled. A thought flashed through my head – could he be closer to the boss than me?”
“I brought my attention back to my presentation. I now saw my competitor look at his phone while I spoke. I felt a surge of anger and thought – why is he sitting here and not paying attention? I made a comment directly to him that was intended to put him down.”
“At that moment, I was totally convinced that he was being rude to me and I wanted to show everyone that I was the front-runner for the promotion.”
Sometimes, we can just watch them
Knowing our thoughts can be wrong doesn’t stop us from acting on them in the heat of the moment. But we do have an option. We can simply watch them for a while.
To watch thoughts, it helps to realize that they’re not real. They are constructs that our brains put together to manage what is real.
Consider these examples.
“She walked away from me; I’ve been insulted.”
“He said that in a tone of voice that felt rude to me.”
“I am hurt by what you did.”
“How dare you swerve into my lane so suddenly.”
Each of these thoughts, could provoke a reaction. But what is thought and what is fact?
Something outside our control happened – this is a fact.
Our brain then produced a thought – like good, bad, helpful, devastating – that gives the fact meaning. There’s nothing inevitable about the meaning the brain gives it. It could give it other meanings.
We take actions based on the thought we had. If we had other thoughts, we might take different actions.
If a thought is only one possible framing of an external event, maybe you don’t have to do anything with it. You can just watch it.
Try this for a few days
Watch the thoughts that go through you, especially when you feel disturbed. Observe how watching them makes you feel. Subsequent notes suggest how you can further protect yourself from unhelpful thoughts.
