I was discussing a workshop design with my colleague, who had a thought block. His thoughts were going on in the same loop, and he could not imagine different possibilities. The impact was that he started thinking about how this idea will not work. He also happened to speak to a friend who said something discouraging. So again, the thought loop strengthened, and he started imagining more of why the idea won't work. When we began discussing this, and I presented different ideas, he said, now I can see a way out of my thinking. Due to my thinking block, I could not imagine other possibilities.
What can we do in such a situation? We can bring the energy of mindfulness and watch our thoughts arise and let them go, rather than feeding these thoughts, which block our thinking further. By letting go of these thoughts, we can settle our minds, and with a relaxed state of mind, we can start reimagining possibilities. I also suggested, rather than saying, how will this idea fail? We could have asked the question, how could we make it work? This pausing and questioning is the pivot in our thinking that can create new possibilities. This change in thinking was not accessible to him because the thinking was fogged with the same pattern loop and, without recognizing it, being carried away in these thought patterns.
Mindfulness is an essential practice where we consciously pay attention to our thought patterns and let them go without judging them and attaching a preference of what thoughts we should have. This way, the mind becomes flexible and pliable. This capacity to let go, developed through mindfulness, can also help us in situations like these, where we could get stuck in our thinking patterns and hit a roadblock.
Comments