The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20130429060907/http://postmasculine.com:80/your-t...

POSTMASCULINE

YOUR TWO MINDS

Join
On December 7, 2012 By Mark Manson · 24 Comments
148,000+
Monthly
Close your eyes. Readers
Wait, don’t close Receive New
them yet. Finish Content Weekly
reading this
paragraph, then Your Email Addre
close them. OK,
close your eyes and Subscribe Now
try to think about
nothing for 30
seconds.
STAY CONNECTED
Ready? Go.

(Waiting…)

Wasn’t easy was it? Chances are various thoughts and images kept
popping into your head.
404 Not Fo
Now, I want you to try the same exercise again, except this time I
want you to pay attention to which specific thoughts and images
pop up. Try to keep track of them. Notice them, note what they nginx/1.19.5
are, and then let them go. See if you can do that for a minute.

Ready? Go.

(Waiting…)

What were they? Maybe that fight you had with your brother the Follow @postmasculine
other day. Or the assignment that’s due tomorrow but you’re
reading this instead. Or maybe a movie you saw recently, or some
sort of fantasy.
BEST OF SELF
IMPROVEMENT
Chances are you were able to notice them for a little while but The Guide to
then you quickly find yourself getting sucked into thinking about Happiness
them involuntarily. The Guide to
Courage
If you’ve ever meditated, even a little bit, you’re familiar with the The Guide to Self-
experience you just had. Discipline

The Rules of Life

You closed your eyes and tried to shut your mind up, even if for
The Prime Belief
30 seconds, and despite your best efforts the spigot of thought
Where Are Your
vomit just kept pouring out.
F$%&ing; Values?
Power in
If you’ve ever attended meditation retreats or been involved in Vulnerability
some movement such as Zen like I was for a while, they talk a lot You're Okay
about this “mind chatter” that you suffered through. Your Two Minds
The "Do
And the thing is, that “mind chatter” never stops. It’s always going Something"
on in your daily life. Principle
The Theory of
A lot of these eastern philosophies aim to “quiet” that chatterbox Meta-Awesomeness
of a mind that we have, and I suppose it’s useful to put a little 10 Reasons Why
damper on it. You Fail
Meditation: Why
But I’ve actually found practicing these sorts of techniques have You Should Do It
another benefit, a benefit psychologists are just catching on to "Check, Please" -- A
and starting to write about here in the West. Story of Perspective
The Ipanema
That benefit is what I call the “Two Minds.” Boardwalk
You Are Your Own
Worst Enemy
When you close your eyes and try to eliminate any thoughts (and
Shut Up and Be
fail miserably like the rest of us), obviously your mind is thinking.
Grateful

But if your mind is thinking, then who is observing the mind thinking?

RECENT POSTS
Whoa…
How to Stop Lying to
When you did the exercise and your mind kept wandering back to Yourself
what you had to do at work tomorrow, who was it that was The Vulnerability
watching your mind worry about work tomorrow? Primer
Why Terrorism
It was your mind watching your mind. Works
Sex and Our
In Zen they refer to this as the “Thinking Mind” and the “Observing Psychological Needs
Mind.” The two minds. The One Trait to
Look For In A
Partner
It’s been a common concept in Buddhism for centuries, and new
western therapies such as Acceptance-Commitment Therapy
(ACT) are catching on to how useful it is and how it can solve a LOT
LEARN MORE
of our every day emotional problems.
About
Books
I’ll break down the Two Minds further and then show how they Courses
can be applied to solving many of the emotional problems we Forum
deal with in our every day lives. Archives
Contact
The problem with the Thinking Mind is that we don’t Affiliates
completely control it.

Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it.

Whatever you do, do NOT think about a pink elephant. Don’t think
about a pink elephant holding a blue umbrella with his trunk.
Don’t think about a pink elephant once over the next two
paragraphs.

OK, not only did you picture a big pink elephant with a blue
umbrella, but you were watching yourself think about a pink
elephant while you were reading the past two paragraphs.

Your Observing Mind was watching your Thinking Mind indulge in

pink elephants repeatedly, despite the fact that it was telling your
Thinking Mind NOT to indulge in said elephants.

The Thinking Mind is always chattering away, while you’re waiting

in line, while you’re in bed trying to sleep, when you “tune out” of
conversations with people, or when your mind wanders while
reading (which I’m sure will happen at least once with me…
asshole).

Our Thinking Mind is like a horny dog on a leash that keeps

running after things and if we aren’t used to using our Observing
Mind, then our Thinking Mind drags us along with it.

If our Thinking Mind starts obsessing about reaching level 30 in

Diablo or the last episode of Mad Men, our Observing Mind is
helpless to reign it in.

The same goes for emotions. And that’s actually where most of
our suffering comes from – not from the negative emotions
themselves, but from the fact that we’re helpless from getting
sucked into the negative emotions.

Most of our psychological and emotional stress happens

because our Thinking Mind and Observing Mind are “fused”
and we don’t recognize the difference.

People ask me all the time, “How do I stop feeling so jealous?” or

“How do I stop feeling so angry?” or “How do I not get nervous in
this situation anymore?”

The answer is you don’t. You can’t control your Thinking Mind.
Those emotions pop up and will continue to pop up.
The trick is to not fuse with those emotions when they arise.

In Zen, they advise that instead of saying, “I am angry,” to say, “I

feel anger.” Instead of saying, “I am nervous,” say, “I feel
nervousness.” Instead of saying, “I am jealous,” you say, “I feel
jealousy.”

It may seem like a subtle difference, but try it. Think of a time
recently when you felt a negative emotion, a lot of anger or
nervousness or insecurity.

Now, instead of thinking, “I was angry at my brother,” think

instead, “I felt anger towards my brother.” You HAD anger, but you
weren’t controlled by the anger.

Emotions are not a choice. Behavior is.

People ask me all the time, “How do you deal with being afraid of
failure?” or “How do you not worry about being rejected?”

I deal with fear and worry by dealing with fear and worry.

(I know, that’s a really annoying answer.)

I feel the same fear and worry anyone else does; I just don’t
identify with it. I accept it and move on despite it.

I don’t let my Thinking Mind control me. I defuse from my

emotions. When I feel fear, I consciously choose to act despite it.
When I feel worry, I consciously choose to act despite it.

For instance, when I have to sit down and write a lot (like writing
this PDF), I often get nervous. I want to write something really
great because I know thousands of people are going to read it.

One result of this nervousness is procrastination.

When I was younger and I was in situations where I got nervous

and procrastinated (i.e., a big term paper in school), I would
decide, “I can’t do it because I’m too tired,” or “I can’t focus like
other people, I must have ADD or something.”

This was me being fused with my Thinking Mind. There was no

separation between my emotions and my identity.

I felt nervous and had a thought of “I can’t do it for X, Y or Z

reason,” and I accepted it at face value. I was a slave to my
Thinking Mind, tugged by its leash.
These days I’m often able to sit down and write 5,000 words or
more in a single day. I still feel the same anxiety. I still hear the
same thoughts (“I need to eat first,” “I should take a nap,” “I’m not
in a writing mood right now.”)

But now instead of identifying with these thoughts, I acknowledge

them:

“I feel nervousness about writing today.”

“I have the thought that I need to eat first.”
“I have the thought that I need to take a nap first.”

And then I turn to my Thinking Mind and promptly tell him that it’s
full of shit and that I don’t need a damn thing except to sit my ass
down and start writing.

We all produce excuses and negative emotions involuntarily.

Guess what? That’s NEVER going to change.

I don’t care how many positive thoughts you conjure, what kind of
therapies you do, or what kind of New Agey spiritual crap you
come up with – negative thoughts and emotions are natural
processes of the human brain.

You can’t get away from them. None of us can.

What you CAN do is accept them. Defuse from them. And then act
despite them.

When people come to me ask how to “Stop feeling angry,” or “Stop

getting nervous,” this is their problem. As soon as you try to
eliminate a thought or emotion, you make it stronger.

As the Buddhist saying goes: “What you resist will persist.”

Or as Tony Robbins says: “You feel what you focus.” The more you
focus on an emotion, the more powerful it becomes. Thus,
negative emotions are like quicksand, the more you struggle to
get out of them, the further into them you sink.

The trick is to accept them and then let go. This is a skill and it is a
process, but it cannot be practiced until you recognize that there
are two minds and you only control one of them.

Here are some exercises you can do that will help you separate
your two minds and therefore take more control of your
behaviors despite your thoughts and emotions.

1. Whenever you feel a strong emotion or thought, disidentify

with it and then take possession of it.
 “My boss is not an idiot. But I am having the thought that my
boss is an idiot.”
“I don’t hate my ex-girlfriend. I am feeling hatred toward my
ex-girlfriend.”
“I am not lonely and depressed. I am feeling loneliness and
depression.”

Language is very powerful. Notice when you disidentify from

these emotions and thoughts in this way it: 1) implies that
they’re temporary states, and not permanent conditions and
2) forces you to take responsibility for them. They’re nobody’s
fault, they just are.
2. Thank your Thinking Mind for negative thoughts and
emotions. This is a technique from ACT and it is effective. It
may sound absolutely nuts, but it’s effective because it
FORCES you to accept your negative emotions instead of fight
them.

“Thank you Thinking Mind for feeling nervous before my date

tonight. It will keep me on my toes!”

“Thank you Thinking Mind for being angry at my boss. I really

appreciate how much you care.”

This is going to feel really bizarre – expressing gratitude

towards negative emotions. But I think you’ll find that it
diminishes the power of the thoughts and emotions over time
and actually impels you to take action despite them.

3. Finally, if you find yourself in the heat of the moment, or if

there’s something that’s really nagging at you, try this out.

Take something that’s bothered you recently and hold it in

your mind. Maybe it’s your girlfriend nagging you. Maybe it’s
being terrified of talking to that cute girl in class next to you.
Maybe it’s quitting your job.

Distill it into a single sentence, such as, “I feel afraid of quitting

my job.” Or “I feel irritated with my girlfriend.”

Now close your eyes and imagine Bugs Bunny saying it, while
chewing a carrot. Then Mickey Mouse saying it, while dancing
and doing cartwheels. Pretend the Chipmunks are singing it to
you in the form of a Christmas carol.

Now, turn it into an image, maybe your angry girlfriend, or

your broke ass sitting on the curb. Put that image on a
television screen. Make the colors funny, give yourself a polka
dotted suit. Make your girlfriend’s hair into a bunch of candy
canes.
 Make the thought look and sound absolutely ridiculous in
your mind. Take your time and play with it. Try to make
yourself laugh.

After you’ve done this for a minute or two, stop. How do you
feel?

Chances are you feel much better about it and the negative
emotion isn’t nearly as potent as it was before.

Separating your Observing Mind from your Thinking Mind is a

habit that takes practice. But once you begin to do it, you’ll feel
yourself becoming less and less of a slave to your thoughts and
your emotions. You’ll take more control of your internal daily life
and feel better about it.

In my opinion, this is the single most important step to developing

self-discipline and acting despite whatever neuroses or mental
hang ups you may suffer from.

Once you’ve differentiated your two minds, you can begin to

evaluate your thoughts and feelings from on objective place and
decide which ones are helpful and which ones are hurtful.
TAGGED WITH → ACT • Buddhism • Emotions • Psychology • Zen 

24 RESPONSES TO YOUR TWO MINDS

geofflosophy says:
December 7, 2012 at 8:23 pm

Hey Mark,
Great post. Your discussion of how to accept
and let go of negative emotions reminds me a
lot of something that Tim Ferriss talked about
in a video that he calls “Negative Visualization.” I
have found this tactic to be particularly useful
for dealing with jealousy in past relationships.
By focusing on the jealousy emotion and letting
it grow temporarily, I found that its power
diminished relatively quickly, whereas when I
was trying to resist and block the emotion out,
it would continue to fester and distract.
Geoff

Reply

GuessHandsOn says:
December 7, 2012 at 8:27 pm
Very insightful Mark. 
 
I would like to know about the relationship
between the two minds.
 
(Are there really two minds? Or is it just a useful
fiction to talk as if there really are two minds –
the way we talk about fictional characters, as in
“Sherlock Holmes is my favorite fictional
character.” Some people claim that math is also
a ‘useful fiction’ and numbers don’t really exist
either.)
 
Also, granted that two minds exist, you can ask
some funny questions, too. Who really are you?
Are you your Thinking Mind or are you your
Observer Mind? Can there be a
mind/intelligence/consciousness without this
duality?
 
I’ll give your suggestions a try. For instance, I’m
not hungry – I feel hunger.

Reply

postmasculine says:
December 7, 2012 at 10:32 pm

@GuessHandsOn Well, Freud said

there was a superego and an ego.
The ego was one’s sense of self,
one’s thoughts and identity, and the
superego was the ability to make
judgments, even if it was about
one’s own ego. So in a way, you
could say the Observing Mind
correlates to the super-ego and the
Thinking Mind correlates to the
Ego. 
 
Neurologically, I have no idea. I
wouldn’t be surprised. As you
probably know, many people seem
to have underdeveloped Observing
Minds (or superegos).

Reply

FritzMustermanns says:
December 11, 2012 at 7:25 pm
@postmasculine  @GuessHandsOn
 I dont think there is a
neurological definition of “self”
yet. There seems to be a self
and its somehow created by the
brain, thats what we know. It
gets even more strange if you
have abnormal situations like in
schizophrenia. Patients
sometimes seem to have
problems identifying with the
observing self. They will think
that the observer is not them,
therefore believing their
thoughts or actions are
controlled by foreign people for
example. More interestingly,
they will hear voices from
people completely unknown to
them commenting on their life
(“As long as you call them that
way after spending the past 20
years with them” a woman with
schizophrenia once told me).
Maybe there isnt only one or
two selfs and the brain decides
for us, which come
to consciousness and are being
felt as “ourselves”?  Nobody
really knows and this is a great
mystery.

Reply

Meg1000 says:
December 12, 2012 at 2:16 am

@FritzMustermanns  @postmasculine  @GuessHandsOn 
 I was in an abusive
relationship where
I experienced a clash of his
perception versus my own
in which case I was living in
two different realities.  I
started to lose my sense of
self and other people
started telling me who i
was….very traumatizing.  A
year later I can see it as
both a good and
bad experience.  This post
definitely hit home for me.
  I know if I took a lot of this
in account I could have
saved myself from being
dragged in some bad
emotional state and
dealing with identity issues.

Reply

FritzMustermanns says:
December 12, 2012 at 7:23 am

@Meg1000  @postmasculine  @GuessHandsOn
 Maybe (just theoretically, i
dont know for real) that is
the way our identity is
chosen – by interaction
with other people.
Fragments of what other
people tell us what we are
remain in our subconscious
memory and surface in
sleep to be manifested in
our personality or “self” in
the daytime. In
schizophrenia, these
memories surface and do
something they shouldnt
normally do: they become
persons again, not being
recognized as memories –
and they talk to you in your
head. These voices often
are generally morally
judging and almost always
negative, they never speak
about themselves. I am
sorry to hear that Meg. I
am glad this can help you. I
think its a good idea, I have
internalized this way of
thinking for quite a while
now, too.

Reply

Transitionalman says:
December 7, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Very insightful. I really admire the way you do
break it down for the average casual reader. I’ve
read Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching and even despite it’s
complexity, it’s underlying message is in
correlation with this general idea. Word up
Mark.

Reply

Ananas Comosus says:

December 7, 2012 at 10:39 pm

I’m going to go as far as to say this is your best

article yet. I’ve been doing this off and on since
around April, and only recently just got back
into it. In my opinion, it is probably one of the
most important skills one can learn (although
some may learn to develop it naturally). I’d love
to see more articles like this, and congrats
again for writing this one.

Reply

John Robertson says:

December 7, 2012 at 10:48 pm

If you learn to dissociate well enough from

negative emotions and thoughts, you’ll find it
hard not to dissociate from positive emotions
and thoughts. Unless you’re suffering, a life
where you’re constantly observing yourself
from a meta-consciousness just because you’re
afraid of being dragged into a negative emotion
isn’t an attractive one.  I completely agree that
learning to affirm negative emotions is
essential however. I’ve always found the more
western idea of finding beauty in emotional
suffering, learn to love strong emotions
whether they be negative or positive, more
empowering than Buddhist type aspirations to
 mental nothingness which delivers
a monochrome contentedness.
I’m loving the site btw.

Reply

someguy100001 says:
December 8, 2012 at 12:05 am

@John Robertson Interested in
seeing Mark’s reply to this.
 Reply

postmasculine says:
December 8, 2012 at 4:28 am

@John Robertson I actually agree

with you that negative emotions can
be appreciated and can be
beautiful. I don’t buy the Buddhist
idea of letting go of everything into
nothingness. The thing is, you can’t
interpret negative emotions in a
beautiful or useful way until you’re
able to recognize them and adapt to
them, which is what this post
focuses on. So I don’t see a
contradiction here.

Reply

John Robertson says:

December 8, 2012 at 11:08 am

@postmasculine  I completely
agree with you (that you need
to be able to recognize negative
emotions and adapt to them),
but there’s something about
 (certain) CBT and ACT type
techniques that have never
really sat well with me, they
seem a bit too mechanical and
‘trick’-like. I can definitely see
their value in breaking painful
emotional patterns, but as
something to integrate into
your life in the long term, it just
feels a bit off.
 You’ve probably mentioned
something on this topic
elsewhere (i’m still yet to finish
reading the site), but i find it
regrettable that for men
literature has lost it’s place as
the thing to turn to for
emotional development. I don’t
mean to sound like some sort
of culture vulture evangelist,
 but it’s been author’s like
Lawrence and Donne who have
gave me the emotional
vocabulary to engage with my
emotions and affirm them, and
in a far more enriching way
than the ACT techniques i’ve
tried in the past. I don’t know, i
guess i just wanted to say
cultivating a love for enriching
books, and not just police
thrillers and harry potter, has
personally
been incredibly important in
shaping my emotional
development, more so than
mindfulness, ACT etc.  I also
find it sad the image of
literature as become
so feminized and elitist that it’s
never even considered as
essential for the average man’s
personal development.

Reply

postmasculine says:
December 8, 2012 at 1:47 pm

@John Robertson Well,
you’ll get no argument from
me there. But there are
different contexts, right?
One could have an overall
general malaise to their life
and then another could
have debilitating panic
attacks. Different tools
work better for different
situations, all are useful to
know, and in my opinion,
cultivating emotional
awareness in general is
never a bad thing, no
matter how you go about
it. 
 
As for the “go your whole
life doing this” thing, I don’t
think you have to
consciously do this forever.
Once you build that
awareness and some good
mental habits, these things
begin to ameliorate
themselves over time.
 Reply

Middle Way says:

December 8, 2012 at 6:15 pm

@postmasculine  @John
Robertson 
 
To chime in with a more
Buddhistic* perspective:
 
Consider the possibility that
you are attached to your
emotions in the same sense
that most people are attached
to their thoughts. And
further that you are not your
emotions, in the same way that
you are not your thoughts.
 
If one can achieve some degree
of mindfulness during an
emotional episode, one can see
that emotions actually have a
mental component .i.e. when
there is anger, there will be
angry thoughts and
visualizations, as well as a
bodily component i.e. bodily
tension, adrenaline rush.
 
With mindfulness it can be
observed that mental
visualization + mental verbal +
bodily components of emotion,
are aggregated together by the
mind to form emotions. And
there is a sort of a cathartic
feedback loop.
 
In my experience, greatly
reducing all three components
of emotions is possible. And
highly desirable, if the goal is to
live a life that minimizes
suffering and maximizes the
development of functional
skills.
 
The way to do it is not via two
minds, but rather by breaking
down the subject / object
duality entirely. And the sort of
mindfulness practice that one
would undertake is different
from the one described in the
article
 
A rough technique is presented
here:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/5jj/meditation_insight_and_rationality_part_2_of_3/
 
Doing this successfully will
reduce the mental component
of emotions but keep the bodily
responses intact. To reduce or
modify the bodily responses is
more advanced and harder to
describe.
 
(*This post just represents my
personal experiences and
shouldn’t be taken as
something authoritative on the
views of any particular group)

Reply

postmasculine says:
December 8, 2012 at 6:51 pm

@Middle Way  @John
Robertson Yeah, you had
me until here: 
 
“In my experience, greatly
reducing all three
components of emotions is
possible. And highly
desirable, if the goal is to
live a life that minimizes
suffering and maximizes
the development of
functional skills.
 
The way to do it is not via
two minds, but rather by
breaking down the subject /
object duality entirely. And
the sort of mindfulness
practice that one would
undertake is different from
the one described in the
article”
 
I’m weary of practices that
conflate the spiritual
realizations (in this case,
breaking the subject-object
duality) with emotional
health. I subscribe more to
Wilber’s model that
emotions are yet another
manifestation that must be
recognized and included as
another valid form of
existence, even if they’re
unbeararably painful. 
 
The goal is not to reduce
emotions themselves (this
just lobotomizes you), but
to reduce the identification
with them and, as John
said, see them as their own
perfect and true
expressions.

Reply

Middle Way says:

December 12, 2012 at 5:03 am

@postmasculine  @Middle
Way  @John Robertson 
 
Yep, I wrote that comment
to say I disagree the idea
that feeling ‘painful’
emotions is necessary (Any
model that says fails to
describe this aspect of
reality, in my opinion) .
 
I do agree that eliminating
emotion is not the goal;
being happier and living
the life you want to live is. 
 
Every aspect of reality is
perfect and valid in its own
way. But I think from a 1st
person perspective there
are some aspects are more
desirable to experience
than others.
 
Stress / Suffering tend to
be strongly undesirable.
For eg. most people would
choose 1 day of bliss
followed by death, over 100
years of torment followed
by death.
 
Affective component of
most emotions tends to
have substantial amounts
of  aversion to the present
moment of reality (eg. fear,
anger, boredom) or craving
for more (eg. greed, lust,
vanity).
 
This aversion / craving is
the problem, not so much
the emotion itself.
Accepting that there is
aversion and craving in the
manner described, does
not solve the issue.
 
Accepting that there is
anger, as an example, is
good. Because it avoids
secondary negative feelings
related of anger or
repressive defense
mechanisms that stunt
personal growth. 
 
But a deep acceptance of
the situation. would mean
that there is substantially
reduced craving / aversion
it, which in turn means that
component of anger would
be diminished as well. 
 
As far as I know this sort of
deep acceptance is not
possible with the usual
psychotheraputic
mindfulness, but requires
developing the mindfulness
and concentration to a
point where certain parts of
our underlying cognitive
model of reality can be
seen through (there is
usually more than one
shift).
 
Emotions continue at a
some level, but the
experience is quite
different. Deep seated
psychological patterns
of behavior and speech
continue unless an effort is
made to change them, but
are relatively easy to
change if they are not
identified with. 
 
But it is possible to
diminish the suffering to an
extent where an average
individual would choose 1
day of life with that state of
mind, over 100 years of life
with the normative state of
mind.
 
That said at some level the
whole ‘meditation to
reduce suffering’ thing is
just a weird hobby, and I
understand that it doesn’t
appeal to the vast majority
of people.
 
Just in case a few that are
interested here is a decent
place to start…
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/home
(no affiliation, except I
 occasionally post on their
forums)
 
Hope this makes sense.
Writing is not my forte. And
this stuff isn’t easy to write
about. Sorry for any
confusion and all the best

Reply
Max Nachamkin says:
December 7, 2012 at 11:54 pm

Very thoughtful post (hah, get it?)

 
I’ve been into meditation for a little while now,
and I want to stress how important this is in
managing your emotions. Even 5 minutes a day
can help you control your behavior when these
negative emotions arise.
 
Christian Hudson states something that I’ve
been learning to live by more and more each
day. “A boy lets his emotions control his actions.
A man lets his actions control his emotions.” 
 
Think about that.
 
Let your actions control your behavior, not the
other way around. They’re just thoughts that
you’re having — they don’t define you. No one
knows about your thoughts, they only see your
actions. But when you start thinking positively,
your actions line up positively as well! So it’s
important to control your emotions..but
realizing what they are and then dismissing
them is the first step.
 
Well put, Mark.

Reply

hobbes says:
December 10, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Excellent.  I have been reading, studying,

meditating for a few years now and it was only
just recently that I was able to come to grips
with these concepts.  This has been the most
profound realization I have had in my life by a
wide margin; that you are not your mind, but
the one that observes it.  
 
Through the constant practice of awareness
and observing my mind as I go through the day
I have found that I am getting to the point
where nothing bothers me for more than a few
seconds, and that happens only rarely.  I have
been able to apply this to every conceivable
component of my life, including events like the
suicide of a loved one, etc.  What it allows me to
do is “feel” whatever charge may exist about
some part of my life, be with it, and then let it
go.  This has been a game changer for me in
ways that I cannot really describe; it is truly
amazing what life can be like when you are not
constantly being dragged down by your mental
chatter.  I feel like I have a super power or
something.
 
The book that finally did it for me was the
“Untethered Soul”, although now that the light
has finally come on for me on this topic I see
that it is talked about everywhere and all the
time by many of the great philosophical and
religious traditions.

Reply

Meg1000 says:
December 11, 2012 at 12:16 am

Cool post!  It has a weird similarity to my

submission for the contest.

Reply

dngoo says:
December 12, 2012 at 1:51 am

How did you come up with #3 — take nagging

and convert it to something funny?  (testing on
yourself, with friends, etc?)

Reply

serbia says:
December 12, 2012 at 2:26 am

i never post on blogs, literally ever.

 
just a couple of things, as the write mentions
language very important.
 
when observing the mind try using the phrasing
of …. “thats just a thought of anger”, “thats just
a feeling of irrational sadness”. Using the word
just seems to help distance the thought/feeling.
The skill is in determining what is a thought and
what is a feeling, it probably doesn’t matter to
much as you deal with them in the same way,
but it gives a feeling of confidence over thinking
mind to identify between the 2. Best rehearsed
during meditation initially and with practice it
improves.
 
one other point, the idea of the rational mind
telling the non rational mind that stream of
thought is wrong or incorrect in some way
often just leads to suppression. the thoughts
will just come back possibly stronger. As author
mentions you will never get rid of these
thoughts, but meeting them with self
compassion (not self acceptance) really
removes the resistance and feeling
of suppressing. e.g “thats just
an irrational thought of anger, but i’ve been
through so much recently it’s ok”
 
all highly personal stuff but thats what works
for me. once practicing self compassion in this
way beautiful things can really start to happen

Reply

Daniel Cuttridge says:

December 14, 2012 at 4:41 pm

We’re not our thoughts, but our awareness of

them. 
 
Something I try to live by.

Reply

MilanT says:
January 17, 2013 at 5:35 pm

Thanks for this post. I tried the techniques

described and its a great thing to beat
procrastination.

Reply

Dora says:
February 25, 2013 at 2:04 pm

Your posting, “Your Two Minds – Postmasculine”

was in fact worth
writing a comment on! Just simply needed to
mention
 you did a remarkable work. Thanks for your
time ,Emmanuel

Reply

LEAVE A REPLY

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are

marked *

Name *

Email *

Website

Comment

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote
cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike>
<strong>

Post Comment

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also

subscribe without commenting.

ABOUT LIFE GUIDES PRODUCTS CONTACT © Copyright

What is Guide to Self- Books Email Me Postmasculine 2011-
Postmasculine? Discipline Courses Facebook 2013
The Blog Guide to Happiness Consultations Twitter Privacy Policy
Archives Guide to Wealth Speaking Google+ Terms and
Forum Guide to Courage Engagements RSS Subscribe Conditions
Guide to Life Become an Affiliate
Purpose Affiliate Center
Guide to Attract
Women