What's the thought that kicks you out of heaven?

“Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.”

—Mahatma Gandhi

“Every thought held constantly and persistently sooner or later materializes after its kind.”

—Claude Bristol

“I was no longer judging the nature of reality by my experiences in the last five minutes.”

—Stutz (2022)

On any given day, we think thousands of thoughts. Many of them are fleeting, barely registering in our consciousness.

Then there are those thoughts that, as Byron Katie puts it, "kick us out of heaven." These are the negative thoughts we get completely stuck on and lost in. They have the power to instantly sour our mood and fill us with fear, shame, judgment, anxiety, disgust, or anger.

One moment you're having a great day. The next, you've plunged into your own personal version of hell. Nothing external has changed, yet you've somehow crafted an entire drama—complete with perpetrators, victims, and heroes—all within the confines of your mind.

"How the hell did I get here?" you might ask yourself.

And perhaps this thought triggers yet another cascade: you need to get your priorities straight, be more disciplined, take better care of your health, be a better partner... Maybe therapy is the answer? Wait a minute—did you remember to make that doctor's appointment?

Who let the monkey out?

Buddhists have a term to describe this chaotic, restless, and distracted nature of our minds: "monkey mind."

People have often shared with me that they started meditating to silence this inner monkey. Unsurprisingly, they then became discouraged and quit when they realized how unattainable this goal is.

I want to dispel this myth: the goal of meditation isn't to stop your thinking mind. It’s to observe it. You might experience a moment of inner silence, free from thoughts, only to find yourself thinking, "Yay, I'm doing it!" the next. This doesn't mean you've gone from meditating correctly to doing it wrong.

Meditation is a process, a process that’s about becoming more aware of the nature of your mind.

We meditate not to evict the monkey, but to get to know and understand it (and ideally train it to not hurl feces everywhere).

Ultimately, meditation helps you see that there's a “you” who is observing with total equanimity, and then there's the monkey, screeching and chattering relentlessly. You are not one and the same.

You are not your thoughts

Thoughts can be tricky because they often feel true, especially when our monkey mind is being particularly loud. And when we believe they’re true, we act and make decisions accordingly, which can then shape or reinforce our identity and self-concept. It's as if we unknowingly cast spells on ourselves through our own thoughts.

Consider the thought, "I'm lazy and incompetent." If you've entertained this thought more than a few times, it might absolutely feel true. You may have even constructed an entire belief system around it and made it part of your identity. Yet, in essence, it's only a thought.

This thought could trigger feelings of frustration, hopelessness, resentment, and anger. You might then think, "Screw it," and behave in ways that further reinforce this thought. Alternatively, you might overcompensate by working yourself to exhaustion, all in an attempt to resist and fight against this thought.

But what if there were other ways to respond to the contents of our minds besides simply going along with or believing them?

The space between you and your thoughts

One of my favorite quotes comes from Viktor Frankl, who wrote "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

Meditation and other mindfulness practices expand this space, allowing us to access it more readily by reminding us to come back to the present moment. But any of us can access this space anytime simply by remembering to pause.

And in the pause, we discover we have the choice to ask ourselves:

"What do I want to do with this thought?"

We can ruminate on it, discuss it, or simply acknowledge it and let it go.

We can question it, challenge it, or choose a different thought.

Believing it is just one of many options we have when dealing with our thoughts.

Training your monkey

An effective way to "get ahead of our thoughts" is working backwards with the end in mind.

Ask yourself, "What do I want to experience more of?" Is it joy, love, gratitude, fun, peace, fulfillment?

You can also consider, "Who do I want to become?" Is it someone who keeps their promises? Speaks their truth? Goes on adventures? Takes bold risks? Chooses compassion over judgment?

Next, create two lists: one of thoughts that would support you in experiencing what you want, and another of thoughts that would hinder you.

Another way to think about this is imagining the kinds of thoughts a person might think if they were already experiencing life the way you would like to, or have already become the person you want to be.

Spend some time familiarizing yourself with both lists.

For the next 33 days, catch yourself whenever you notice a hindering thought—one that's keeping you from having the experience you claim to desire or being who you want to be. Acknowledge the thought, then make a conscious decision about how to respond.

Run the experiment and see what happens. And remember, believing the thought is only one of many options.