You are not your THINKING

I’m back. I have not been geographically away, but mentally and emotionally, I have traveled to the wonderful and hectic (in a good way) land of Thanksgiving. The birds flew back to the nest (no pun intended) and we enjoyed and appreciated our precious time together.

We had some visits with extended family. Sitting across the table from a family member, listening to his judgmental, not very pretty (in my opinion) thinking, I found myself getting irritated and frustrated. And sharing my opposing thinking. Just a little.  And noticing my own judgment of him and what kind of person he was with “that” kind of thinking. And on and on until I was downright irritated but doing my best to conceal it.

Thinking creates our reality. Our experience. Our feelings. Our everything. Although we’d like to believe it’s the other way around. “If he just didn’t have THAT kind of thinking, I would feel better.”

When my thinking finally settled, I saw something.

I realized I was seeing him as his thinking. To me, his thinking was who he was.

Then I had an insight.

My insight was that he is  NOT his thinking. I got that he was just a person, who happened to think a certain way, a way that he had been thinking for a very long time based on old societal norms.  And he had no qualms about speaking it. And maybe that way of thinking was feeding his ego in some way.

It was my own thinking that labeled his thinking as ugly. And it was my thinking that created my perception of him in which he actually became his ugly thinking.

Well duh! It seems rather obvious.

What I see and understand to be true at a level I did not get  before, is that our thinking is not us. My thinking about this person is not me. His thinking is not him. Our thinking is transient and blows in and out like the wind. Some of it may come back in the form of habitual thinking, but in a moment’s notice with a new, slightly different understanding, even habitual thinking can and does shift.

My own thinking about this person has settled. Once I truly saw that he was not his thinking, this allowed me to see him with more compassion. My yucky irritated feeling dissolved.  Time, but more importantly, insight,  worked its magic. Nothing has changed but this person looks very different.

I love when that happens.

Bring on the next family gathering.

I’m ready. I think? 

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