Turn Thoughts to Thinking

“Turn thoughts to thinking.” When this idea first came to me on one of those morning walks, it lit a light bulb in my head. Everything became crystal clear, including many ways I could use it to illustrate and explain how the mind works, or not.

I thus got excited. I started to share with my hypnotherapy clients. I asked them, “Just turn thoughts that occur in your head into your own thinking.” They looked at me, puzzled, as if I was speaking a foreign language.

Yeah, right. Maybe the hypnotherapy profession suits me so well because I speak Kemilish – combined with English, Mandarin and world-travel mixed accents and otherworldly expressions.

That may be why I do my job well. When people sort of get it but are unsure if they entirely get it, I keep going as if they have already ultimately gotten it. They are too sure that it was not a good time to argue… so they just give up and go all the way into an open-eye trance.

But still, turn thoughts to thinking – that may be one of my most important discoveries of the year, or the decade. When I started to go deeper with what I meant by saying that and show my clients the considerable difference between “thoughts” and “thinking,” it all began to click with them.

Taking the thoughts occurring in our head for granted – Is THE source of many of our problems.

I have Socrates to support me. He famously said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” To examine is to do your own thinking or enquiring.

I love to share, with whoever wants to hear, the complete logic and precise brilliance behind this statement so that they can also turn their static, stagnant thoughts into vibrant, lively thinking. Get out of the grips of automatic thoughts and start to have your own logical and sensical (did I make that word up?) thinking.

For example, “I am not worthy.” – That is a thought. Let’s do the thinking: Who then are worthy? Worthy for whom? For what? Can I be worthy enough for the unworthiness? If so, then I am worthy of something. Since I’m worthy of something, “I am not worthy” is false.

For example, “I am never good enough.” – That is a thought. Enough for whom? According to whose standard? Can I not be just bad enough? And what’s wrong with that? Either way, I am enough. And can I not settle on that?

For example, “I don’t think I can be hypnotized.” – Occasionally, I’d hear that from a client before or after a session. That’s a thought. I’d turn it into thinking. What does it mean to be hypnotized? How would I know? Is being hypnotized not an experience? How do I compare my internal experience with external observations?

You are born to think. You are not here just to receive reused, regurgitated thoughts. Not all thoughts are faulty, but they may not apply to you. Therefore, when you do your own thinking, you find your way to navigate this life that is full of potentials and unmanifested dreams and fulfillments waiting for you!

To think or not to think. That’s the question.

By the way, it may be helpful to ponder on this acronym for “THINK”:
T: Is it True?
H: Is it Helpful?
I: Is it Inspiring?
N: Is it Needed?
K: Is it Kind?

Self-Hypnosis for a Better Life – A three week in-person program is coming back in July, and it’s now open for registration. Let’s work together to turn thoughts into our own thinking.