How aware are you of your thoughts?

If you think about it, when an idea occurs to you it's a moment of mental focus. You suddenly become aware that you have an "idea" and then proceed from there. Ever wondered what's going on in your head the rest of the time? Clearly, you are thinking and doing things, and hopefully not on too much mental autopilot (See related article: Presence of Mind ).

When I was in my 20s I went to a psychologist trying to deal with my spasms brought on by my Cerebral Palsy rather than using drugs. One of the things they had me do was in the morning carry with me a recorder and then during the next session with him we would review what was picked up. There was a little prep involves in that I was asked to not hold anything back just verbalize what ever occurred in my head. Boy was it an eye-opening experience. I could not imagine a 1/5 of the thoughts that went through my head. At the time it was very negative and very emotionally based.

Now, it is my belief that when you have Cerebral Palsy it is like being a biological biofeedback machine. There is a tendency for your body to react a little more obviously to every single stressor. It literally means that you get a clearer indication of what is affecting emotionally and environmentally. I suspect in an able-bodied individual these things might go unnoticed. But together the doctrine I turned a disability into a positive, combined with the awareness of what I had been saying to myself.

In a nutshell what came out of it was, it is not the grand big thoughts you have that effect your life to a great extent, it is the small ones, the ones in the background they fly underneath your radar which have a massive cumulative effect. If you're lucky and they're mostly positive and you are probably a great person to know right now. But in this crazy world you might have also taken on a lot of baggage or have avoided dealing with things and it is built up. So I suggest you grab your self a recorder and for the next few days pick a time every day when you record your conversations and thoughts.

The routine should go something like this:

1. Pick a time which you can consistently do this.
   
   
2. Make an agreement with yourself to verbalize everything that occurs to you. This may seem odd at first but after a day or two would become second nature and that's when things will get really interesting.
   
   
3. Let a few days pass before reviewing the recording. This is to give you some distance from whatever you were verbalizing so you can listen to it a little more objectively. If you have a trusted friend you can get them to sit in with this review. It can be very useful to have a second opinion.

You will be amazed at first what bubbles to the surface.( I sure was… To this day I still remember the first few recording review sessions with my psychologist, I was flabbergasted. ) Then of course the next step is to make a plan to move forward. It is likely he will find this recording ritual in itself not only revealing but it may help to lighten your load by getting these thoughts out in the open.

When I was doing this it was all on cassette tapes and I kept doing it for a long time, ending up with a closet shelf of stacked cassettes. I wish I had kept them because they would be very interesting to review right now. How often do any of us get to listen to ourselves 40 or more years ago in such fine detail. Heck I may start a audio archive and review it a few years from now. It would be an interesting the side project :-).

Have a great day everyone and thank you for visiting. I'll be putting up a video this weekend on some topic. As always if you have an idea just leave a comment.

Take care Patrick.