Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Ann O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host and today we will be talking about all about thoughts and feelings. So we're going to take a look in the mind today. And so before we get started, if you're watching us on YouTube, please consider like sharing and subscribing. You know that we have to get the YouTube algorithm to share this with more and more people. And then of course, please consider sharing with your friends and family as well. So, if you've been watching the podcast, you know that I've been talking about meditation, I've been talking about spiritual effort, and mainly it starts with observing the mind. So I thought today that we'd talk a little bit deeper about what is going on in the mind. It's funny because as I'm preparing for the podcast today, I thought, okay, I'm going to write thoughts, feelings, and whatever. And the list just kept going and going and going. So it's funny how, maybe we don't realize how deeply nuanced and how complex and wonderful our mind is. First of all, when you watch the mind, the obvious things that are going on in the mind are thoughts, right? So what are thoughts? Thoughts are based in language. Thoughts are, maybe we're not hearing the words clearly. Like let's say I'm reading something and I'm reading it, I can hear the words as I'm reading it in my mind. Some thoughts might be like that, like maybe I'm almost hearing a voice talk to me in my mind. But some thoughts are just like directional, like pick up the spoon or. Time to go to the bathroom, time to eat, those are thoughts that are going on. They may not be very strong, they may not be fully developed, but they're kind of directions. I would call those neutral thoughts. Thoughts that are there to help direct the action of my day. There are other kinds of thoughts, like negative thoughts, right? The worst kind of negative thought I would say would be like a self critical thought. Self critical thoughts. And I have said in the past that I believe that self critical thinking, self criticism is the worst poison of the mind. So that's like the worst kind of thinking. That's like a voice. It's almost a screaming voice at you. This is not good enough. You really should be doing this. Why did you do that? Maybe a voice that makes us feel guilty, regret, afraid, things like that. So there's a voice that's talking, there are thoughts that are talking with a voice and it almost has like a presence to it. Also there are thoughts that are more pure. Like in meditation we say, I am a soul, I am living consciousness. Those are thoughts. Interesting how just talking about thoughts, we just had like three different experiences. Negative, neutral, and positive in thinking. Interesting. Then we have feelings. Feelings are not based in language, although we sometimes talk about our feelings, thanks to psychology and other things. We have language to name the feelings, like anger, sadness, happiness, joy, things like that. So we do have words and language to, articulate what we're feeling, but the feelings themselves are not based in language. And we experience feelings also in the mind. I feel sad. Where is the sadness. Can I locate the sadness? Is the sadness in my hand? Is the sadness in my shoulder? Is the sadness in my back? Now sometimes there are some schools of thought out there that say that the feelings and emotions do, manifest in, as physical symptoms or maybe are stored in the body. That's another topic, but the feeling itself is not related to any specific part of the body. It's experienced in the mind. Think about that for a minute. The feelings that I'm having, even if I have, let's say I have a pain in my knee. My knee hurts. And so I have thoughts about that. The knee, my knee hurts is a thought, right? But there's also feelings. Maybe I'm having the feeling like I can't believe this, I can't walk, whatever. And there's more talking and then feelings. Maybe negative feeling or maybe disheartened feeling, things like that. Those feelings and thoughts are there. The feeling is not the same as the thought, but they work together. And they're all experienced where? in my mind, inside, in this, non physical arena that we call the mind. Memories. Memories is another thing that we have in the mind. We have all kinds of memories, memories of childhood, memory of what I ate this morning for breakfast, memory of when I have to do the laundry, memories of all different things are stored in the mind. That are retrievable when necessary. So, as I'm talking about this, like a scientist, as I'm looking at the mind, I'm seeing wow, I have thoughts, I have feelings, there's language there, there's memories. All kinds of memories that also bring experiences, yeah? I can remember something that I really enjoyed. Maybe I'm remembering a heartwarming memory. Maybe When I got married or when I first met somebody or when my child was born and I have a memory of those feelings or of course there could be negative ones as well. Next one, moods. What's a mood? We had a whole episode just on moods. So moods are feelings. I have a working definition of a mood. A mood is a feeling, an emotion or a feeling, that's coming up from your subconscious that has no recognizable thought attached to it or circumstance attached to it. So for instance, I could be sitting here and all of a sudden I feel sad, like the mood of sadness and I have no reason to feel sad or have a mood of worry or disheartenment. Or mood of, doom and gloom. You feel like something's wrong. That's another one. That was one I used to have a lot. Something's wrong. So that could be a mood. It's like a generalized sense. It has nothing to do with what's going on now, but it's coming from within. Coming from, I'm going to say the subconscious, has nothing to do with anything that's happening. We have impulses. Impulses happen in the mind because it's not just a thought. So let's say I see some ice cream. I'm just giving an example because it may not be the same for everybody. But just generally, if I see some ice cream and maybe I'm on a diet or maybe I know that maybe I'm lactose intolerant and I know that it's not good for me or something, but I automatically have an impulse to eat the ice cream. And the impulse is made of what? A thought. I want the ice cream and some energy behind it, like a feeling or a memory or, an attraction. The next one is attraction. So the impulse is the energy that the thought and the energy that kind of gets me going in a certain direction, right? Attraction is, I'm going to say, a desire for happiness. I'm attracted to this because I want to feel happy. I want to feel happy. I want this job because I think the job is going to make me happy. So I'm attracted to that. A lot of times we're attracted to things that are negative too. We did a episode about addictions and there's a whole system, a whole mechanism where we're so used to going after something and then we end up staying with it just out of habit and because I don't know any better and because. I'm getting something out of it so I'm, I keep it going when in actuality it's a negative experience for me. So attraction could also be unhealthy. But generally attraction is what is good. I'm attracted to something that's good for me. Time consciousness. This is another one. What's time consciousness? So here's an example of that. You wake up in the morning and I don't know if everybody does this. I would imagine that they do. You have to say, okay, what day is this? Okay. It's Monday. That means I have blep, It's like, it's almost like you press a button Monday and all the files from Monday come in. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right? Or what time is it? It's 3 p. m. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the, all the information and, and schedules and responsibilities and everything starts filing into your mind at that time. So I'm going to say that's time consciousness, meaning that based on the time or the day or the month or the year, whatever, I am filling my mind with information that I'm going to use. You can use time consciousness against yourself also. It's not meant to be. Time consciousness I believe is meant to be practical. That I know that I have to be there at this time and you know it also and we're going to use time so that we can make sure we meet together at the right time. Okay, then role consciousness. So what is role consciousness? Well, if you watched Some of the other episodes you may have heard me use the word sanskar. In spiritual knowledge, we call it a sanskar. What's a sanskar? A sanskar is when all the information, just like I said with time consciousness, all the responsibilities come in and file in. Role consciousness means that when I am in a situation, the whole role comes up to be used. For instance, I have trained to be a nurse, as you know, and I, I studied for many years and got my doctorate also, so in nursing leadership and so I've been practicing nursing in many different arenas and there's a lot of experience, knowledge and information and everything, memories about nursing. But right now, I'm not using that. I'm not using those sanskars of a nurse. Sanskar would be, like I said, the memories, the knowledge, the wisdom, the actions, the experiences, right? So if somebody was walking here and fell down and broke their hip or they were screaming in pain, you can bet that all of those sanskars or the role of a nurse would come right up to be used. How wonderful, how wonderful that we have that mechanism in our mind that when the time is right, all of that comes up, being a mom, same thing. As soon as you come into the family, all those sanskars of being a mom, the role of being a mom. I'm using the word sand scars because it's a little deeper than just playing a role, isn't it? As a, as a mom, let's say to my son, I have a 17 year old son. It's more than just me saying, Oh, I'm going to be his mom now. It's a whole embodiment. It's memories, it's perceptions, it's decision making based on that. So those are sand scars. It's like a whole being that comes forth based on the situation. So that's in there too. So that's role consciousness. Then we have. Group belonging and playing our part. That's also going on in the mind. What group do I belong to? I have the consciousness of the group also. So if I say I'm female, then I'm within a group of females, right? If I say I'm American, I'm within the group of being American. That's group consciousness. And that's okay, but again, it can be used for negativity also. It can be used as a weapon or it can be used as other things. But the consciousness of being in a group in itself is not negative, okay? And that's part of what's going on in our mind. And then the last one I have here is moving forward. We have the consciousness in our mind of moving forward. What does that mean? That means that we, in our mind, have a natural sense that I'm progressing, I'm achieving, I'm growing, I'm accumulating, let's say, accumulating knowledge or whatever. Also there's goal setting, right, reaching the goal, setting a goal and then moving towards a goal. That's also part of our mind, like the landscape of our mind. We may not have thought of all these things as separate things because they're happening automatically. I think it's very useful to, maybe in a scientific way, kind of break down the different functionings that are going on in our mind. Why? The more I understand something, the more power I'm going to have with it, right? So, for instance, let's say, going back to the moods, if you go back to that episode we did on moods, if I know it's a mood, I'm less likely to be upset about it. I feel that all these functionings of our mind, sometimes we're reacting to them. Let's say there's some negative thinking or negative moods, or maybe attraction to things that are bad for me, or the time consciousness has become, oppressive. I can't, I have no room to breathe because I'm constantly feeling like I'm, I have no time. So, all of these things, these natural functions of consciousness or of my mind can also be negative. But I want to say that when we understand them, we can start to move them in a positive direction. They're actually, they're not negative or positive. They're just functions of consciousness and we experience them in our mind. So all about thoughts and feelings was the name of his episode, but it really kind of turned into what is the landscape of the mind, what's going on in there and how does it work? And I hope you got something out of that. Think about it. Because like I said, the more I know about it, sometimes I say, if I know how to fix an engine. And the car breaks down, I'm going to feel a lot more comfortable than if I don't know how to fix the engine. Same thing with the mind. The more I know about the mind, the more I know about how it works, and the more I'm able to watch myself with that merciful self observation, no judgment, I'm able to watch myself and learn and take this knowledge and watch and then work with myself. Okay, yeah, I know that this is a big time addiction and I'm not able to, change it on a dime. That's okay. But I know it's there. I understand it. And little by little, I'm going to move it to neutral, and then eventually to positive for myself so that these functions begin to serve me. Okay. There's no reason why they have to be negative. They're just functions. So I want to say the mind, my mind is not the problem. I'm going to say that maybe it's been used in a negative way, not on purpose. We did what we were told and we did what we thought was right. But with new information, with spiritual knowledge and with meditation practice, with that merciful self observation, I can work with myself and little by little work my way towards that neutrality and then towards the positivity. Okay, so I'll leave it there. I hope you enjoyed this and maybe took a few notes and maybe you'll be able to identify some of these different functionings in your mind. So our slogan is heal, empower, and serve. So until next time, take care. You
