The Elements of Thought

Note: This article uses info from the simple little book Leave your Mind Behind. Authors McKay and Sutker do a great job of delineating how thought works.

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The Short Explanation: Thought is what happens in the mind. What happens in the mind determines everything. Therefore, thought determines everything. Or, as was said 2500 years ago, All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts, it is made up of our thoughts.

A review of the OODA Loop processes:

Step 1. We have a perception, an Observation.
Step 2. Orientation. The Mind automatically reacts to the perception with a mix of the various elements of thought. We 'make sense' out of the perception based on the elements of thought that arise in response to the perception.

Remember, what the mind thinks, we believe. Whatever we believe becomes our guidance system that we then use to navigate through reality. Our beliefs form our personal Matrix of hopes, fears, and rules.

Step 3. Decide. We make decisions, choices (based on the flow of our personal Matrix).
Step 4. Our choices translate into Actions, which then have create our lives.

And the process flows on and on, from moment to moment.

Remember- we cannot change Observations, and Actions will change only through a change in the Orientation or Decision process. The Orientation and Decision processes are composed of the elements of thought. Therefore, understanding and mastering the elements of thought is a critical element what I call the Red Pill path (from the film, The Matrix), or living with a free mind.

There are several basic elements of thought. They are listed below in no particular order.

1. Observations - of the present moment

2. Memories - of images, words, and sensations

3. Judgments - good-bad? right-wrong? guilty-not guilty? pretty-ugly? nice-mean? better-worse? brave-cowardly? ...and so on

4. Storytelling Thoughts - that try to explain why things happen, likely explanations

5. Future Thoughts - 3 types (in no particular order)

a. Planning thoughts - figuring out how to handle something in your 'for sure' future - specific steps of coping with something

b. Fantasy thoughts - mental tourism, "mind trips" that might be romantic, escape, financial, sexual, dramatic, creative, scary, dark-- but it isn't real and it isn't happening now

c. Fortune Telling thoughts - commonly called "worrying" - anticipating future problems, their severity, the loss or pain you or others could experience

No element of thought is intrinsically better or worse than any other element. We need them all. Each element of thought has some utility, but the utility depends on the context.

The elements of thought are like the hand tools in our tool box. If you really need a hammer for a job, trying to do the work with a drill will just make a mess and you will probably fail. If the only tool you ever use on any job is hammer, you can do a few jobs well but you will fail at most jobs. We need to understand how to use all of the tools in our toolbox so that we can be effective everywhere we go.

And, we need to be able to see the tool that we are using right this second- what tool is in your hand now?

What element of thought is operating in the mind now? Any given thought is composed of one or more of the elements of thought.

The elements of thought are the foundations of the mind. The mind is the forerunner to all things.

When you are asleep to the nature of the mind, you will believe whatever your mind thinks. You are thus trapped in your personal Matrix, your "blind mind".

When you are awake, when you know and understand the elements of thought, you will have a chance to be free, and that will make all the difference.

And that is enough for now.

Culture Quake - the book

I just ordered this book. Given the economic downturn, the imminent arrival of peak oil, and growing world population, there is a perfect storm brewing that will probably really upset the apple cart. Hopefully this book will help us figure out how to prepare a little better for the coming storm.

The Thinking Self and the Observing Self

Hi there - This was inspired by the work of Dr. Russ Harris, The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living.

The Thinking Self and the Observing Self are the two major aspects of the everyday Mind. Both are always simultaneously operating in the mind. They operate in parallel and they communicate with one another. Both the Thinking Self and the Observing Self have utility; otherwise Nature would have eliminated one of them by now.

Often one or the other dominates the stream of awareness that is the flow of our life, of our experience. Whichever aspect is dominant is heavily influenced by experience but there is also a genetic component as well.

Connection with the experience of the present moment happens through the Observing Self. It involves bringing attention to what is happening here and now without getting distracted or influenced by the Thinking Self.

The Observing Self is by nature nonjudgmental and non-interpretive. In fact, the Observing Self cannot judge experience because judgments are thoughts which are products of the Thinking Self.

The Observing Self cannot (and will never) get into a struggle trying to figure out reality; it sees perceptual sensory data just as it is, in the moment, openly, without constructing a verbal overlay of meaning on top of the data.

The Mental Matrix through which we interpret the world is constructed by the Thinking Self.
If we are having thoughts that things or people shouldn't be as they are, that we shouldn't be as we are, that reality is good or bad, right or wrong, then we can be certain that we are attuned to the Thinking Self. It tells us things like life could be better somewhere else or we could be happier if only we or someone else were different.

When we notice that we are struggling in our thoughts, we can deduce that we are fused with the cognitive creations of the Thinking Self.

The Thinking Self works like special sunglasses that color both what and how we are able to see the world. When we interpret our life experience through the Thinking Self, we perceive the cognitively constructed private subjective world, a world of comparisons, of dichotomies, of expectations.

The Thinking Self allows us to use symbolic language processes like planning, designing, or problem solving, which can be quite handy. You cannot design a building or go to the dentist without the Thinking Self. The most brilliant human pursuits are dependent on the symbolic language of the Thinking Self.

And, importantly, human suffering is made possible through the capabilities of the Thinking Self. For example, only the Thinking Self can get bored. Boredom is a verbal thought process, a story that life would be better, more interesting, or more pleasant if we were just doing something different. The Thinking Self can easily become bored because it can convince itself through mental comparisons that it already knows all it needs to know about the present and it is free to move on, to think about something else.

Whether we're walking down the street, driving to work, eating a meal, having a conversation, or taking a shower, the Thinking Self is quite capable of taking it all for granted. After all, it truly thinks it has done this stuff before, so no further attention to the present moment is required. Rather than help us connect with our reality in the present moment, the Thinking Self often captures our focus and takes us mentally to seemingly more interesting thoughts in a different time and place.

When the Thinking Self dominates, we spend most of our time only partially aware of our surroundings, scarcely capable of noticing the richness of the world we actually inhabit in the present moment.

The Observing Self, unlike the Thinking Self, is incapable of boredom. It perceives everything it notices with openness and interest, because this moment is fleeting, alive only this instant.

The Observing Self is always present and is always available. Through the Observing Self we connect with the vast range of our human experience. It does not matter if the experience is new, exciting, familiar, or unpleasant-- it's all simply acceptable, it is all ok. And, a fascinating thing is that when we have an attitude of openness and curiosity in the present, moments which the Thinking Self had anticipated with dread often either disappear or they turn out to be much less unpleasant than we had expected.

The Happiness Trap

I am reading this now - it is great. A very readable, understandable approach to ACT.

Highly recommended for anyone who wants to be free from the mind.

And, it has a nice followup website for the book as well.

Leave Your Mind Behind

I am reading this one now- it is really good. It is a practical little book with 50 lessons on how to not be as trapped by your mind. Highly, highly recommended for anyone who suffers from anxiety, worry, paranoia, emotional reactivity, anger--- etc.

I am still here--

The holidays are over and I am full speed as far as health goes. I have been enjoying working in the home based office arrangement I have now.

One of my projects I am working on is "The Red Pill Workbook", a compendium of short lessons on becoming more liberated from your mind,

Easier said than done- that's why I have to write a little book about it.

New Office Report, update

The new office is working out great-- everyone seems comfortable enough.

Inviting people to your home is a lot more personal and intimate than inviting them to a professional office complex. I think that I was a little nervous about opening my life up that much and being that transparent.

My profession of psychology teaches me to be "clinically distant", but if you know me at all you will have observed that I am just not a "clinically distant" person! A bit reserved, perhaps, and shy in some ways, but definitely not distant.

I cannot help being open with people, so in reality I think that working form the home-based office actually let's me be myself more- it is more honest and open. There is not as much image management possible. When you come to my office, you see how I live for real. I like it.

One of my projects I have been working on is taking shape- I am writing a workbook to help people free themselves from their own minds. My tentative working title is "The Red Pill Workbook"- that will probably change, but I like it.

More later, y'all.

I am reading this one now--

I really like the metaphor of the matrix. Red Pill, Blue Pill-- what is it going to be for you? Truth or Fantasy? The choice you make alters your life forever.

Escaping the Matrix: How We the People can change the world

Steve Pavlina's book

I am reading this now- there is already enough good stuff in the first few chapters that I have read to heartily recommend this one. I will be using it a lot in my private practice with people who have issues like chronic mental illness, marital problems, career indecision, or folks who just want to live a better, more connected and fulfilling life.

Buy the book here

I am back, mostly, from moving

Wow, I haven't posted for almost a month. It has been a bit intense moving- it is a challenge to move from a larger space into a smaller space. I had a huge amount of space as well as closet space in my old office-- I had a lot of stuff in there!

Fortunately we have a mostly unused room in the main house- it is now full of  alot of unused electronics and other stuff. A rainy day decluttering project.

Some of the furniture from my old office was moved to my wife's office at the U of M, some is in use around the house, some went to my daughter's house, and some was given away. I gave away 5 old computer monitors using Freecycle. 

The new office is mostly up and running the way I want. After my first week, I found a couple of things that need minor changes, but other than that, it went pretty smoothly.

More people were comfortable parking on the street than I thought. Several who parked on the street commentted that they really do not like backing up. It isn't a long walk to the office from the street at all. 

One person walked to the appointment- she was about 5 minutes late, but now she knows how long it takes to walk to the office from her house. 

I am really glad I made the move. The economic news has been abysmal-- I don't think our culture can be as economically or energetically as mindless as we have been in the past. Credit crunch, recession, resource depletion, peak oil, overpopulation-- wow, moving to a home office makes a lot of sense when you look at all of that stuff.

Next year we'll grow more vegetables more often.

Infrequent Posting due to the move--

I will be busy with the office move the next few weeks, so I will not be posting as much.

Stay tuned to this blog for the latest info on my move.

After things settle down with the new office space, I'll get back to regular posting.

Not in the office today--

It appears to be some sort of virus or something like that-- not enough focus available to go in and do my job today.

Moving in October

This is a Big Announcement-- It is very important to me, at least- I doubt that many of you will find that it that makes a huge difference to you personally.

Here it is-- I am not certain yet of all the specific details, but I am certain that I will not be occupying my current office at 5575 Poplar Avenue after October 1st. I will relocate my private practice to an office at my home.

Why? I am restructuring so that I can bring my life more into line with my values. I want to transition to a personal and professional lifestyle that makes a wiser use of our natural resources. I can do my job just as well without maintaining two separate locations and without using so much energy. To me, given our global energy crunch, reducing our personal and professional consumption is the ethical thing to do whenever possible.

And, given the current nature of the economy, reducing unnecessary overhead just makes good financial sense. I really love working in my current office at 5575 Poplar, but I can be more adaptive to the economic conditions if I reduce my expenses. Financial pragmatism trumps luxury.

Other than my location, most things will not change-- I will maintain my professional status so that I can continue to practice as a licensed psychologist, a health service provider. This means that all of my folks on disability and/or Tenncare can still be seen. I will maintain my relationships with managed care organizations and preferred provider groups. I will continue to have a psychology practice that consists of a mix of biofeedback, marriage counseling, and psychotherapy.

Some things will change-- I will not see as many people as I see now, so I will be even more selective when it comes to seeing any new clients.

The home office is in a remodeled building that was formerly a garage apartment. It is totally separate from the main building, my home, so I can make it my own, a real office that doesn't double as a family space and that will not conflict with my family members' lives. It has a nice tile floor and is quite shady- that's a real plus in the summer time! It has a restroom, and all the comforts of home. One of my daughters lived in it for a couple of years after she graduated from college.

Another way the home office will help is that I can work more flexible hours. Many people cannot get the help they need because of their job or family schedule-- If I am seeing you at my home and I do not have to travel to an office several miles away, I won't mind seeing you now and then during evenings or week-ends. This flexibility should be especially helpful to couples and families that want marriage or relationship counseling -- it is often really hard (or impossible) to coordinate the schedules of family members who are in school or employed full time. Flexible hours should help with that.

What will I do if I am not working as much? Well, you might show up for your appointment and find me working in the garden wearing overalls and work boots. As many of you know, my wife and I are both very interested in living a more local, more self-reliant lifestyle. We are working to gradually convert our modest 1936 farmhouse into a self-reliant urban homestead. We have plans for expanding our gardening efforts, capturing rainwater for irrigation, installing solar panels, removing some more concrete to expand our growing spaces, and improving our composting efforts.

That's a lot of work! Working from home will allow me to invest a lot more time into our urban homestead self-reliance project. So, actually, I think I am restructuring so that I can work more at things that I have to neglect too much now.

I am excited (and a little nervous) about this change.

My phone and e-mail will stay the same. 901-763-0999 and cliff.heegel@gmail.com will be the best ways to reach me. You can text me at 901-763-0999. My website and blogs will remain active for now.

Great Book for those who suffer from trauma, PTSD, etc.

Are you a trauma survivor? Do you suffer from PTSD? I think you might be able to benefit from this book by Claude Thomas, a Vietnam vet who became a Zen monk. Claude has suffered greatly in his life. He was abused as a child, went to Vietnam and entered combat at 17, and lived a long life of anger, fear, violence, drugs, and mistrust. This book tells his story.

More importantly, Claude is really wise. He has a simple but very deep way of talking about the transformation of suffering. On almost every page I see sentences that are zingers- great pieces of wisdom.

I hope you are not scared away from this book because Claude is a Zen monk. There isn't a lot of Buddhist jargon in the book although there are a lot of references to how Claude uses his spiritual practices to deal with his own personal PTSD and other issues.

Check it out, buy it, whatever. Just read it. Claude's Book

Real hope for real freedom from suffering

If you cannot see your mind in operation, you are subject to the vagaries of the causes and conditions of your life and mind. This means that you are operating in a reactive state. Our reactions are created by our past experiences.

If you are stuck in a reactive state, you are not choosing your actions in the present moment. Instead, your past is ‘choosing’ your behaviors—you are acting in reaction to your training or conditioning.

Now, if you are not happy, if your life is filled with suffering, there is a high probability that there are some patterns which were created in your past that are now causing suffering in your present life. Your actions are not creating happiness, they are creating suffering.

Reactions are mindless knee-jerk responses. Reactions are mental, emotional, and physical. We cannot help having our reactions, especially our thoughts—our mental reactions (thoughts) arise naturally when the conditions in the present moment interact with history, which is carried by us in our mind, body, and emotions.

So, if we cannot help having our reactions and our reactions are creating suffering in our lives, what can we do to escape this trap? Is there anything that really helps?

The only thing we can do that has any real hope is to wake up to the nature of our mind, to wake up to the nature of our reactions. We can learn how to act differently despite our reactions.

The key to freedom from the conditioning from your past is to wake up, see clearly how you are reacting, and choose to act differently and hopefully wisely in the present moment.

This means that if you find yourself mired in reactivity, you should first of all, just stop. Sylvia Boorstein phrased it as "Don't Just Do Something, Sit There"

Easier said than done, but it can be done.

After you stop, look calmly at your reactivity—how are the mind, body, and emotions reacting in the present moment? And, how are those reactions influencing your actions?

All of us have moments in which our initial reaction is just not that helpful. We have to calm ourselves and choose a different action than the one which our reaction was leading us toward.

For example, I might encounter someone who seems rude or condescending to me. My initial reaction might be to be rude to them in return. However, I have a lot of life experience which has demonstrated to me that being mean and rude to others is rarely the path to happiness. I would calm myself and make an effort to say something that wasn’t rude or mean. If the relationship was important to me, I might try to go deeper into the other person’s inner world to try to understand where they were coming from. On the other hand, if it was an unimportant relationship to me, like perhaps a rude stranger at a grocery store, I might simply disengage. No need to go to war over something that has no real importance.

No matter what I chose to do, I am probably much better off if I can mindfully choose my actions rather than just blindly reacting.

Practice mindfulness in all of you activities, in every moment. As soon as you notice that you are in a reactive state, stop, calm yourself, and look clearly at your reactivity. Then choose how to handle the moment according to your highest ideals and values.

From PsycPORT.com-- Test developed for borderline personality disorder

This is important- it looks at the hardware issues that underlie BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder. My guess is that the same hardware issues might underlie at least a portion of the people who are suffering from PTSD. Worth a read if you are a brain-behavior-psychotherapy type.


PsycPORT.com | Test developed for borderline personality disorder: "Houston scientists develop test for personality disorder: Malfunction is identified by brain imaging devices during game play
Houston Chronicle - August 10, 2008

Aug. 10--Using brain imaging devices and a computer game, Houston researchers have developed an objective test for borderline personality disorder, a serious mental illness whose sufferers are unable to form and maintain stable relationships.

The brain malfunction found by Baylor College of Medicine neuroscientists is thought to be the first identified for any personality disorder.

'I'm hopeful this will mark a new approach for mental illness,' said Read Montague, director of Baylor's Human Neuroimaging Lab and the project's leader. 'It should provide a tool to diagnose the condition and test therapy's effectiveness.'

The research, published in Friday's edition of the journal Science, is part of an ongoing effort to understand the neurobiology behind mental illnesses and to develop objective diagnostic tests for them, similar to the bloodwork, biopsies and x-rays used to diagnose other ailments. Baylor has been a leader in the effort.

As many as one in five psychiatric inpatients have borderline personality disorder, ..."

Click here to read the rest of the article

Get In Shape With Little or No Equipment

Get In Shape With Little or No Equipment- from Lifehacker located at this link:
http://lifehacker.com/400053/get-in-shape-with-little-or-no-equipment


This is a short, simple summary that is on the money- check it out. No gym membership required.

The actual program is located at this link:
http://zenhabits.net/2008/08/minimalist-fitness-how-to-get-in-lean-shape-with-little-or-no-equipment/

from Lifehacker by Jason Fitzpatrick

Many people are under the impression improved health and fitness requires a costly gym membership or home exercise equipment. The consummate minimalist in all endeavors including fitness, Leo of the blog Zen Habits has put together a list of exercises that are heavy on results but light on equipment.

It takes no equipment to get a great workout and get in shape, and with one or two pieces of simple equipment, you can turn that great workout into a fantastic one, you magnificent beast, you.

The majority of the exercises require nothing more than your body weight as resistance, with a very few requiring a pull-up bar and some form of weight resistance such as a rubber resistance band or kettle bell. If you're looking for a more unorthodox type of weight resistance check out the sledgehammer based ShovelGlove. He lists tons of exercises, many with accompanying demonstration videos and a sample workout routine. If you undertake a new workout routine, keep yourself motivated by tracking your fitness progress with free tools.

Women Vets and Military Sexual Trauma

As a veteran and as a psychologist, I was very interested in and very moved by a lengthy post yesterday at http://www.healingcombattrauma.com on women with PTSD from sexual trauma incurred while on active duty, usually perpetrated by a fellow soldier.

The blog is a good read in general and is full of resources for vets and their families. It helps me think about things as a professional, and I learn a lot from the sources cited on the blog.

I think any type of trauma survivor, combat or not, can learn a lot about healing from PTSD on this blog. Highly recommended.

Fall Semester Schedule

As many of you know, I am a husband and father in addition to being a psychologist. I have to adapt my work schedule so that I can be in synch with my family.

As it happens, this semester (Fall 2008) I will need to be out of the office on Monday afternoons. Those of you who are regular Monday afternoon folks will be changing your appointment times, since I will not be in the office Monday afternoons.

I am in the process of setting up an office at my house for evening and week-end work-- I'll keep you posted on when that office will be available.

Out of the Office -- Boston August 1-4

I will be in Boston, MA Friday August 1 through Monday August 4th. My wife is attending a conference I am tagging along as the faculty spouse.

This will be my first trip to Boston. I am looking forward to seeing a few of the sights.

Some of you might know that I received my Master's degree from Boston University. Strangely, I have never been on the campus but I graduated from the school. Here's how-- I was on active duty in the US Army in Germany. Boston University had a contract with the Department of Defense to provide a few graduate-level programs. I completed Boston U's Master's program in Counseling in Augsburg, Germany.