Our brains have a strange habit of not noticing too much when we shift from one part of them working to another. Our ideas can be about wanting to have a sandwich, thinking of love, moving our left arm from the heater or fixing things with friends. All these thoughts come in one single flow without breaks even if they start from different parts of your brain that have their own history and ways of growing up over time.
This lack of attention to where our thoughts come from often means we don't realise as strongly as we could when a clear part of our minds steps up and leads, which is what we call our conscience. Our sense of right and wrong tells us what we think about when we're five minutes late for a meeting, and start to get angry with ourselves for not leaving home sooner. Or when we see that we haven't paid a bill or answered a work email, or even noticed at lunchtime that we're not meeting the daily targets we planned out for ourselves. Our mind keeps all our thoughts of what we should and shouldn't do; it holds our bad feelings like guilt and shame, as well as pushes us to be better or tells us when we fall short.
Often, we don't just forget to give a name to this mind space, but we also fail notice how strange and limited it can be. We don't have examples to look at because it's not easy to tell what other people's minds might be thinking, so we can't say for sure about our own. We might have lived on earth for a long time before we know – maybe because of a nice friend or careful doctor – just how serious and sometimes even harsh, our sense of right and wrong can seem. We're not just a little ashamed to be late for the meeting, it seems like we are always so stupid to mess up over and over. We feel a bit embarrassed about our work performance, but actually we're truly very bad and never seem to improve. We can't match up with either our brother or dad - even though when we broke up with someone important from the past, they clearly said it was not because of us. Deep inside, we know for sure this just shows once again how much we're not good enough and don't deserve love at all.
When we understand that our conscience is there and it tells us things in a way that's not full, we can start to think better about where everything came from. To compress the matter: The way we talk to ourselves is like when others used to speak with us. Our sense of right and wrong comes from what our first caregivers said and did. Even when we're hurried to get on a train or feeling bad after reading an upset note from work, our quiet thoughts inside are like the way certain people who were important and dear once talked back to us.
The main idea is a chance to ask questions. Do we enjoy how we talk when we're not on time? Is it helpful to treat ourselves like we do when love rejects us? When we make mistakes, do we handle them with the intention of learning and growing? And, in a bigger way, what do we think of the people who showed us how to know right from wrong, about feeling bad and doing our job? That is also about trying hard and needing things. Did they have a good outcome? Was their life good and worth copying?
Our inner voice might be talking to us in ways that are very different from the things we normally think are important. How much do we really need to beat our minds up when we make a mistake? If we noticed another person treating a stranger like we treat ourselves, would we find it amazing? Or should we – maybe – think about getting help from the people in charge?
We might not remember them all the time, but a group of big people from our pasts have quietly become part of our thoughts. It might be the right time to separate their words from the kinder and more useful views we wish for, which we deeply care about in smart thinking. It was already tough to go through what we did; there's no need to keep hurting ourselves inside just to please a group of ghosts that we unknowingly took in. We aim to arrive at the right time. Maybe we can learn to do it without yelling and using bad words. We can create for ourselves the morals we would wish a child or dear friend had.
Katie Kaspari, MBA, MA Psychology
CEO and Founder of Kaspari Life Academy.
Top-rated Author, Motivational Speaker and Self Improvement Enthusiast.
Good Habits Design for Success and Happiness.
Shaping MINDS and building LEADERS.
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