Kanisa George
DESPITE our best efforts, we can sometimes find ourselves in the inconvenient position of being influenced far too strongly by what we think. Our thoughts are often at the helm of the narrative and can sometimes speak volumes, even over rationality. Sometimes no matter how hard we try what we feel and what we do is influenced by what we think.
Take, for example, the "you are what you eat maxim."
If you closely evaluate this principle, it'll become apparent that much comes down to impulses, feelings and inhibitions attached to food. And when we get to the meat of it, these variables are heavily influenced by our thoughts and viewpoint on food. Ergo, our relationship with food is influenced by how we think about it.
It's not just our relationship with food that's shaped by our thoughts. Our thoughts significantly impact our relationships with others and even with ourselves.
Thoughts are our most faithful companion and a foe that never leaves our side. Most of all, our thoughts never fail to interject, making themselves known even when their perspectives aren't welcomed.
Sigmund Freud's psychoanalyst theory on behaviour proposed that thoughts are directly linked to who we are. What we think impacts every facet of our being, and the outcome of our personalities depends on our inner dialogue.
THE POWER
OF THOUGHT
Freud wasn't the only one who believed in the power of one's thoughts. For centuries, great writers, philosophers, and overachievers alike have spoken of the powerful influence of one's thoughts and how provoking their broader impact is on our daily lives.
Stoic and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote, "A man's life is what his thoughts make of it." Poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "A man is what he thinks about all day long."
For these thinkers, our thoughts create our experiences; thus, we experience what we think.
"Are we truly what we think?"
Modern cognitive behavioural therapists believe that thoughts are really just that-thoughts, and they don't always paint an accurate picture of who we are. In reality, thoughts are often in direct opposition to the thinker and might be an extreme response to fear, overstimulation, or, in the case of women, hormones.
In her piece, "Bizarre Thoughts and Me: Confessions of an OCD Therapist," psychotherapist Stacey Kuhl Wochner shares that there are still common misperceptions about thinking. These include how thoughts are meaningfully linked to the inner being of the thinker and how our thoughts are sometimes considered bad omens for the future.
According to Wochner, most of us give our thoughts, especially fear-inducing, negative thoughts, far more power than they deserve when, instead, we should show them some level of deference and move right along. We can't run from them, but we can acknowledge their existence and let them float on by. The trick is not to let them seep into our being.
When we internalise harmful thoughts and allow them to take root in our consciousness, they manifest in our actio
