01-31-2016, 01:21 PM
This seems like a good time to toss in a trick I taught myself awhile back, which turned out to be more useful than I thought it would be when it came to silencing thoughts. Basically, I taught myself how to unlearn something I had just learned if I did it immediately.
Now, bear with me, if you're thinking "But why would I ever want to do that?" It led to better things.
But let's say, you're lying in bed at night, and then suddenly it hits you like a bolt: Bob and Pam at work are totally having secret sex! And you really don't want or need to know that or see the visuals it inspired. Or maybe you read a spoiler for a movie\TV show online that you wish you hadn't. Something along those lines. The key is that A)it's information you don't want, and B)you instantly recognize this.
The trick is to then immediately distract yourself and prevent your mind from thinking about what you just learned. Sing a song. Recite Pi. Visualize your favorite scene from your favorite movie. Start running through your favorite poem. Grab your smartphone and play the first game you see. Whatever. The actual distraction doesn't matter, just that you immediately divert your attention away from whatever it is you just learned. If you can keep this up long enough, the unwanted memory will fade away without being retained.
(I suppose meditation MIGHT work if you were good enough at it, but it's hardest to empty your mind when your mind doesn't want to be empty, so I tend to think more substantial distractions would be more effective.)
I find it seems to work in three phases. The first and most critical only lasts for five minutes or so, when your mind REALLY wants to think about that-which-should-not-be-thunk. Don't let it. Stay focused on your distraction. Keep it up, and you'll "hack" your brain at a physiological level and interrupt the usual conversion of short-term memories into longer-term, which is powered in part by thinking about those memories.
Then for the next 30-60 minutes, there'll probably be a "nagging" sort of feeling, that exact I've-forgotten-something vibe. Your mind and\or spirit know there's something being blocked, and this is usually a bad thing, so the instinct is to then try to dig into your memories and uncover it. It's probably not necessary to keep singing or whatever, but you should be aware that these impulses to think about that-which-should-not-be-thunk will hit, potentially quite strongly, and need to be diverted by distracting yourself with other thoughts.
And then this feeling may persist for up to a day or so, but the immediacy of it should fade quickly and become easier to parry when it comes up. The hardest part may be resisting the urge to think about the minutes leading immediately up to the event, but remembering them almost always triggers a memory of TWSNBT. Or you might subconsciously start to question why you made the decision to put that block in place, but trust your instincts and decision in-the-moment. Re-evaluating the decision, again, almost always triggers the memory, and recalling it directly even once is usually enough to cement it in your mind.
After that, it should be mostly faded and might not even come back if you think about the initial event. I have a few incidents I recall where it happened, but I've honestly lost the memory I deliberately suppressed. And, of course, practice makes perfect. Even after realizing this was potentially possible, it took me a few tries to pull it off.
Now, why do all this just to avoid Star Wars spoilers or whatever? Because that basic trick of suppressing your mind's natural curiosity is incredibly useful for the sort of work talked about in this thread. Once you get the basic knack of it, you should (or at least I did) find it far easier to deflect distracting thoughts that are interfering with meditation, or higher-self conversations, channelings, etc.
It's a very specific technique that then opens the door to a much more generalized one, and potentially brings more deliberate control over your semi-conscious mind. I can now usually suppress that urge-to-think without having to go through the whole deliberate distraction process, just willing my mind to go in different directions or to remain blanked.
So, maybe this'll be a helpful trick for someone else here too.
Now, bear with me, if you're thinking "But why would I ever want to do that?" It led to better things.
But let's say, you're lying in bed at night, and then suddenly it hits you like a bolt: Bob and Pam at work are totally having secret sex! And you really don't want or need to know that or see the visuals it inspired. Or maybe you read a spoiler for a movie\TV show online that you wish you hadn't. Something along those lines. The key is that A)it's information you don't want, and B)you instantly recognize this.
The trick is to then immediately distract yourself and prevent your mind from thinking about what you just learned. Sing a song. Recite Pi. Visualize your favorite scene from your favorite movie. Start running through your favorite poem. Grab your smartphone and play the first game you see. Whatever. The actual distraction doesn't matter, just that you immediately divert your attention away from whatever it is you just learned. If you can keep this up long enough, the unwanted memory will fade away without being retained.
(I suppose meditation MIGHT work if you were good enough at it, but it's hardest to empty your mind when your mind doesn't want to be empty, so I tend to think more substantial distractions would be more effective.)
I find it seems to work in three phases. The first and most critical only lasts for five minutes or so, when your mind REALLY wants to think about that-which-should-not-be-thunk. Don't let it. Stay focused on your distraction. Keep it up, and you'll "hack" your brain at a physiological level and interrupt the usual conversion of short-term memories into longer-term, which is powered in part by thinking about those memories.
Then for the next 30-60 minutes, there'll probably be a "nagging" sort of feeling, that exact I've-forgotten-something vibe. Your mind and\or spirit know there's something being blocked, and this is usually a bad thing, so the instinct is to then try to dig into your memories and uncover it. It's probably not necessary to keep singing or whatever, but you should be aware that these impulses to think about that-which-should-not-be-thunk will hit, potentially quite strongly, and need to be diverted by distracting yourself with other thoughts.
And then this feeling may persist for up to a day or so, but the immediacy of it should fade quickly and become easier to parry when it comes up. The hardest part may be resisting the urge to think about the minutes leading immediately up to the event, but remembering them almost always triggers a memory of TWSNBT. Or you might subconsciously start to question why you made the decision to put that block in place, but trust your instincts and decision in-the-moment. Re-evaluating the decision, again, almost always triggers the memory, and recalling it directly even once is usually enough to cement it in your mind.
After that, it should be mostly faded and might not even come back if you think about the initial event. I have a few incidents I recall where it happened, but I've honestly lost the memory I deliberately suppressed. And, of course, practice makes perfect. Even after realizing this was potentially possible, it took me a few tries to pull it off.
Now, why do all this just to avoid Star Wars spoilers or whatever? Because that basic trick of suppressing your mind's natural curiosity is incredibly useful for the sort of work talked about in this thread. Once you get the basic knack of it, you should (or at least I did) find it far easier to deflect distracting thoughts that are interfering with meditation, or higher-self conversations, channelings, etc.
It's a very specific technique that then opens the door to a much more generalized one, and potentially brings more deliberate control over your semi-conscious mind. I can now usually suppress that urge-to-think without having to go through the whole deliberate distraction process, just willing my mind to go in different directions or to remain blanked.
So, maybe this'll be a helpful trick for someone else here too.