07-30-2018, 12:00 AM
There's a simple practice to learn how to control your attention and as Derek said already you needn't stop the internal dialogue in order to take away the power from it.
What I've done is shift my attention to my breath inhaling/exhaling when I see thoughts arise and move my attention to them I just move it back and look at the breath again and I repeat. With time it becomes quite easy to control your attention and even if you have thoughts you're not immersed in them and they don't control how you function your feelings, decisions or anything else about you they just hover around in there if you let them.
It's just like with everything else things in the world are happening if we're not paying attention to them, however, it's like they're not there.
If there's an elephant behind you but you're not aware of it will it make any difference?
That analogy is not perfect for the example because you can be perfectly aware and still have it make no difference and that's what I explained above. It can be there you can know it's there but it won't move you unless you decide to move.
What I've done is shift my attention to my breath inhaling/exhaling when I see thoughts arise and move my attention to them I just move it back and look at the breath again and I repeat. With time it becomes quite easy to control your attention and even if you have thoughts you're not immersed in them and they don't control how you function your feelings, decisions or anything else about you they just hover around in there if you let them.
It's just like with everything else things in the world are happening if we're not paying attention to them, however, it's like they're not there.
If there's an elephant behind you but you're not aware of it will it make any difference?
That analogy is not perfect for the example because you can be perfectly aware and still have it make no difference and that's what I explained above. It can be there you can know it's there but it won't move you unless you decide to move.