Through my course of the MBSR program I found the book “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle and it’s leaving quite the impact on me. I haven’t read more than the first 35 pages yet, because almost every paragraph gives me something to think about. Really think about it and to try to implement it in my every-day-life.
I might not agree with all of what Tolle wrote or with every aspect of his philosophy and I might not be willing to surrender to the ‘Now’ completely. But I definitely can relate to his idea of what is causing so much emotional pain for so many people. Part of it might be due to the way Tolle writes and explains. It’s easy to understand and to follow his philosophy and he’s dead on when he gets to the root of the problems. On every page I say “oh, I know that from my own life” or “that exactly is my problem” at least twice.
Take the “watching the thinker” approach for instance. If someone would go to the doctor and say “I hear a voice in my head” that someone would probably be considered “mad” and sent to a psychiatrist. But in fact, we all hear voices in our head all the time. Voices that judge, comment, compare, like or dislike every detail the mind perceives or thinks it perceives. But that voice is not the core of our being, it’s not our inner self or whatever you want to call the part of us that is not our thinking mind.
So th first step to a less worrisome and much more relaxed life is to listen to that inner voice, to realize that it’s just a thought but that this thought is not you. The fact that you witness the thought should prove to you that there is the thought and there is you and that these after all are two seperate entities.
At first it’s not easy to actually distinguish between these two and I haven’t mastered it very well so far yet, but I’m working on it. And I’ll do my best to be “watching my thinker…”