The Joy of Not Thinking

A Radical Approach to Happiness

By Tim Grimes

For more information visit:

www.radicalcounselor.com

Copyright © 2019 by Tim Grimes

The ideas, concepts, and opinions expressed in this book are intended to be used for educational purposes only. This book is made available with the understanding that the author and publisher are not presenting any specific medical or psychological advice. The author and publisher claim no responsibility to any person or entity for any liability, loss, or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly as a result of the use, application, or interpretation of the material in this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system without permission.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T THINK

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH MOVEMENT AND NOISE

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH SELF-TALK

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH INDIFFERENCE AND STILLNESS

INTRODUCTION

I am a mystic at heart, and I believe in nothing.

– Gustave Flaubert

When I was sixteen, I had a mental breakdown. It happened while I was on vacation in the Caribbean with my family. I’d been reading an old Zen book, and it did me in. I’d experienced some strange mental states before, but this was different. As I read this book, death moved to the foreground of all my thoughts—and then stayed there. I found myself in a tropical paradise, terrified. Living seemed too cruel to carry on with. Buddha had said all life was suffering and all that meant was that everything was hopeless. There was no way out. Escape was impossible. When you looked at things soberly, it was obvious. Life, inevitably, was really just suffering and death.

I kept this anxiety to myself as best I could. There was nothing to say anyway. No one could help. I was helpless, mortified, but aware that I was unable to do anything about it. The stress began to wear on my body. It felt worse and worse. I would have killed myself right there if death didn’t scare me even more than life. I reasoned if I killed myself at least this particular suffering would be over.

These feelings peaked and then went on, and on, and on. At some point, I took a drive with my family to a beach on the other side of the island. It was bad. My insides felt as if they were being torn out. I didn’t understand what was happening. I felt like vomiting but couldn’t. Finally, we arrived at the beach. I sat under a tree, in the shade, trying to act sane.

And then I thought I died.

Something happened and then nothing. And then there was something again. I don’t know. Was I dead? I looked around and realized I wasn’t. I was on the beach, under a tree. But there was no “I.” Everything was different. Everything had dropped off. Where was “I”? I didn’t exist. What was happening? What was this? It was indescribable. You couldn’t describe this. Any description was pointless. Everything was perfect just as it was, but at the same time, it wasn’t that. Because there was no everything. There was nothing at all. There was no need to describe anything ever again because there was nothing. Words and description were meaningless. Nothing was real. Nothing mattered!

And this was, undoubtedly, the best news possible. The greatest realization I could wish to have. Yet that couldn’t begin to explain how good this was. It was way beyond any conception I could come up with. Everything, and everybody, was saved. That was clear. Everything was fine—now and forever. Nothing needed to be done, ever. The whole thing—life, death, reality, individuality, good, bad, right, wrong—was a lie. An illusion. A sham. Everything just was—just is.

And this was perfection, beyond any belief, rationalization or label I could ever put on it. It made no sense, and it was perfect. It was before time itself. It transcended thought, was past my comprehension. Thought created all this suffering—and thought itself was not real. Without thought, all was grace—always. It was all blissfully and blatantly simple, yet totally illogical. I sat on that beach, thunderstruck. It was laughable. Whatever you thought, it didn’t matter. Thought had nothing to do with anything real. Everything was always perfect, no matter what you thought…

These types of ineffable moments happen to some people. Maybe they happen to many people. Maybe something similar has happened to you. That experience, which wasn’t really an experience and can’t adequately be described, or explained, shaped my life. However, “I” gradually came back. Slowly, the inexpressible joyfulness faded, and as time went on, “I” started to feel like I was suffering again. My life again became, more or less, like that of a regular teenager.

But I wasn’t the same as before. Something had shifted. I saw that thought was what caused my suffering. And if I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t suffering. Suffering was an illusion created by thought. And thought, ultimately, wasn’t real. Without thoughts, there is peace. Without the thought of an “I,” there is grace. And with thought, there is this deep peace too—it’s just we think there isn’t. Regardless, all is good, it’s just we usually completely fail to recognize it.

While I had perceived this truth, replicating that beach experience seemed impossible for me. I spent the next decade vainly searching for ways to do it, only to gradually realize that I was getting nowhere. Those moments—when you’re beyond thought and time itself seemingly drops away—utterly blow away any idea you may have had for them. Every single time. You don’t make it happen; it makes you happen. In such a way, the truth is always blindingly, brilliantly bright. And, likewise, in such moments, we naturally ask ourselves the question: If everything already is perfect, what are we trying to transcend anyway?

What I pragmatically was able to confirm for myself, through my wayward searching, was that everything begins and ends with “thought” and “no thought.” When our mind really quiets down, we inadvertently drop into profound stillness and peace. We automatically realize that everything is already fine exactly as it is. Everything is fine already. Everything is perfect. There’s nothing you need to do.

I guess this is the only real spiritual lesson I ever took to heart, and it happened to me when I was sixteen years old by having a mental breakdown on the beach. In the years since, I’ve encountered many wonderful teachers who touch upon this subject, and maybe they’ve helped me better articulate the practical benefits of not thinking than when I was younger. But there’s really nothing to explain or anything to get. Nothing I say—or anybody says—really means that much. I might tell you something that sounds interesting, but still it really misses the point. Reality is always better than whatever we think of it. The words in this short book might reinforce this for you, and you might find that helpful on a practical level. That’s why I wrote it.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T THINK

Thought is the enemy.

– U.G. Krishnamurti

The premise of this guide is basically explained entirely in its title, The Joy of Not Thinking. If you ever become confused, just look at the title. It tells you all you need to know. We’ll be exploring the subject in further detail, but everything always comes back to the same place: Don’t think! This material is about learning how to practically deal with stress more effectively by viewing it through the lens of “thinking” and “not thinking.” It will show you how you can think far less rationally—in effect, not think—to better deal with your emotions. When we’re not consciously thinking so intensely, everything is fine. But we seldom allow ourselves to do this, and most of us don’t even know it’s an option.

While there’s obviously nothing wrong with thinking—we have to think, after all, in order to live—we’re usually way too serious in how we think. We tend to overthink. And this can change with practice. So, while the idea of “not thinking” might sound strange at first, you’ll soon become comfortable with the concept, especially when you see how it makes you feel and behave. Then, once you’re comfortable, we’ll further explore the amazing ways you can utilize it as a practical tool.

Something should start to become clear as you read: You’re fine just as you are, as long as you don’t think about it. You’re probably going to get the sense that, on a deep level, everything already is okay—because it is. You’re fine as you are, however much you consciously try to deny it. Not thinking allows you to see this for yourself, which is nice. And when you start to know there’s nothing truly wrong with you, it gets harder and harder to make up a story that there is.

Although it might not sound like much, if we can learn how to relax more and accept that we’re already fine as we are, some good things are going to happen. We may think that we’re on a journey, one where we have to battle through adversity and gradually improve ourselves, but by not thinking we’ll see through this idea and recognize it for what it usually is: Bullshit. You don’t have to battle through things or constantly strive to improve yourself. We often try hard to do this—and it usually fails in working. The truth is most of us just need to become more relaxed because we aren’t that good at it. Thinking less and becoming more relaxed is, surprisingly, enough to positively change things.

In short, we usually don’t have to do anything—we just think we do.

This is very good news. Once we realize that most of our thinking doesn’t mean anything—and that we don’t need to be so logical and serious all the time—we begin treating things differently. We call into question some of the painful notions we hold dear. Like that being a very serious person is worthwhile (it usually isn’t) or that trying hard and being the hero will lead to success (it usually won’t). Not thinking allows us to flip many of these popular myths on their belly and expose them for what they are—falsehoods.

Again, to be blunt, if we can just learn to be less special and relax more into what we already are instead, good stuff will happen to us. I’ve done so many stupid things in my life, and most of them were well-intended. I often cared too much about outcomes and inadvertently stuck my nose in other people’s business by trying to be compassionate. I mentally tried too hard—and I did not help. In my opinion, there’s a better way, a quieter way that will make you feel better and also, paradoxically, allow you to help others more effectively.

No matter where you are in life, as you read this guide, I’m optimistic that you’ll start to see how stupid trying hard usually is. How dumb thinking hard is! We can stop doing so much of this unproductive “productive” behavior. It doesn’t take an elite skill to drop this useless overthinking. Instead, we can begin doing it by occasionally acting the way we did when we were four years old. Being less serious is one of the easiest ways to relieve stress. In other words, it’s one of the more straightforward ways to eliminate your overthinking and a great starting point for doing so. You’ll learn exactly how to do it shortly. But it’s important we first clarify and go over a few general concepts, like what I mean about being serious.

We should understand there’s nothing wrong with being serious when we feel like it, in the same way that there’s nothing wrong with thinking and being rational when we feel like it. If you genuinely like being serious at any given moment, that’s perfectly fine. If you’re serious and feel good, there’s no point in being less serious! But when you feel like crap, you’re going to find it incredibly helpful to say, “Screw it,” and drop the serious thinking as best you can.

So, what we’re really focusing on here is overthinking and being too serious. It can seem subtle, but when we feel worried or depressed, overthinking is the likely culprit. And even if we’re aware of this, we often go on autopilot when it comes to our difficult emotions. We generally lack the self-confidence needed to quickly make ourselves feel better. We assume the solution for feeling good is too far out at sea to possibly reach it—even though, in reality, it’s already with us right here on shore.

One of the main reasons for this is because of how stress is portrayed in our society. Most of us are unaware we can work with “negative” feelings—fear, anger, loneliness, anxiety, etc.—to minimize their lasting impact. Unfortunately, stressful feelings like these are, in many ways, the accepted cultural norm. We’re essentially expected to feel crappy a lot of the time. Therefore, many of us become used to being overrun by tough emotions and assume that’s just the way it is. Looking at the world around us, it seemingly confirms why we constantly have these overwhelming feelings. We, in turn, communicate to each other about how bad we feel, directly or indirectly commiserating about how tough life is. It seems very, very hard. Yes, we’re depressed and scared! Why we wouldn’t we be? It seems crazy not to be scared.

But we can test all these assumptions by examining how we think—and what happens when we don’t. And, by testing them, we realize how off-base these assumptions are. The constant negativity we feel is largely a false projection that we create for ourselves. Fearful, depressing beliefs were something fed to us when we were younger, and we ate them up unknowingly. These beliefs then went on to shape how we think about things. But these beliefs are not actually true. It’s just that we think they are.

In reality, we can drop most of this negativity. It’s not real and doesn’t need to be there! It’s perfectly okay to feel good more often instead. There’s nothing wrong with this—with wanting to feel good, allowing yourself to feel good. Logically, we know this. You might say, “Of course I can allow myself to feel good! Why wouldn’t I allow myself to feel good?”

But the proof is in the pudding. And you’ll find—perplexingly—that sometimes you’re going to have a lot of trouble allowing yourself to feel good, even when all logical indications are that you should feel good. We should feel good…and yet we don’t. It’s an unspoken truth a lot of the time. Relatively few adults in our society put a premium on feeling good with any type of consistency, or day-to-day regularity, partly because it’s going against the grain of our culture. But you can do it, it’s entirely possible. And it gets easier to do as we free ourselves from taking those false, fearful beliefs so seriously.

Understand that allowing yourself to feel good, instead of constantly stressed, will not make you irresponsible or reckless. It won’t make you unreliable. It won’t make you uncaring. It will probably have the opposite effect. When we feel good, we tend to become more responsible, sane and in tune with others. We become pleasant—maybe even a pleasure—to work with. We’re mindful of other people’s needs and more capable of responding accordingly. Feeling good, shockingly, is wonderful and far better than feeling bad! We might as well allow ourselves more of this satisfaction, as best we can, and be fully confident that we deserve it. Don’t turn away from feeling good. Don’t think you’re unworthy of it. That’s absurd.

Which takes us back to where we began. How do we feel good more often? We stop being so serious! We stop thinking so much! Perhaps it sounds simplistic to say this, but that’s because what needs to be made clear to us is simplistic. We become less serious in order to stop overthinking and feel better. Yes, it sounds simple. But it’s also profoundly effective if we do it. If you don’t overthink, you’ll feel better, and better things will happen to you. We need this to be repeated to us again and again, so it can be instilled into us.

Life is simple and then we complicate it. All the time. “Don’t worry, be happy” is the easier way, but we don’t listen. We screw up, screw up, screw up, inwardly struggle and fight ourselves. I don’t have to give you a litany of examples of this because you already know it. You can probably already feel many examples of this inner struggle from your own life. You’re familiar with suffering and worrying, we all are.

Yet, again, the pain we feel is often misrepresented in our culture. We’re taught that we need to learn more about suffering by welcoming it into all parts of our life. We’re supposed to think about suffering much more than we need to. On top of our own personal issues, it’s also normal to hear all about the problems of our friends, family and colleagues—not to mention the world’s problems. Now, obviously, on some basic level, this makes sense. It’s worthwhile to be aware of problems that are going on around you…but, in practice, it usually backfires terribly.

Hearing about everyone else’s troubles overwhelms us. It makes us suffer unnecessarily and painfully overthink things that we probably shouldn’t be thinking about at all. We can’t even solve our own problems, and now we’re somehow supposed to expertly solve the issues of others? Please! There’s clearly a time and place for listening and helping others with issues they may have, but the truth of the matter is that we have to focus on our own well-being first in order to help others with any sort of real success.

Peace is to be found in this moment. It isn’t something we attain. When we go out looking for it, we miss the point. It isn’t meant to be sought out, at least in the way we traditionally believe. It’s what we allow ourselves to be. It’s what we fall into when our overthinking mind is absent. And you can fall into it right now more easily than you think you can.

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH MOVEMENT AND NOISE

“What is your philosophy of life?”

“Think as little as possible.”

– Charles Bukowski, Hollywood

So, what does it really mean to think less? The world seems like an utterly screwed up place and yet we’re not supposed to be serious about it? How’s that possible, and why would it be at all desirable? Well, as we just touched on, the world seems like a screwed-up place because we believe it is. We think it is. Feeling miserably out of control comes from our thinking. If we start to understand this, it enables us to feel better. And we can easily begin by being less serious.

Pause for a moment and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Now, imagine what would happen if you started making loud farting noises with your mouth. And I mean loud. Or what would happen if you began vigorously jumping up and down while barking like a dog. Or if you started rolling around on the floor while giggling like a baby. Or you stripped off all your clothes and started using your tummy as a percussion instrument. Or began speaking like an eighty-year-old Polish grandmother. Or if you ruthlessly started punching a pillow while laughing like a pirate…

That’s being less serious.

What we’re talking about isn’t an intellectual exercise. Being less serious is using your mind and body in a way you normally don’t—in a momentarily shocking and absurd way. When you’re making sounds like a monkey while dancing around the room with music blasting, it’s hard to think seriously. The sheer physicality of what you’re doing will inevitably overwhelm you and take over in such instances, and you have no choice but to mentally loosen up.

It sounds pretty stupid, but it works. That’s the point. Your conscious thinking is not nearly as static or fixed as you believe. Your life is not fixed like you think it is. It’s illusory. Your conscious thoughts are easily malleable, and not being serious—momentarily doing something totally ridiculous with your body—makes you aware of this.

Our body’s normal, habitual physical behavior is often the reason the behavior of our thinking comes in predictable, annoying patterns. As adults, we’re extremely predictable in our physical behavior. Thankfully, we can shatter this normalcy by doing something abnormal with our body. By doing that, our thoughts abruptly change. We can go from feeling awful—with our same depressed thoughts running on autopilot—to feeling great within a matter of minutes, just by physically not acting serious!

This might sound way too good to be true…but it’s not. And that’s why it’s a good way to begin exploring not thinking. If you really allow yourself to stop being serious, by physically behaving unpredictably for a short time, you will feel much better than you did a few minutes earlier. This isn’t theory; this is how your body works.

Now, obviously, you have to test this out if you want to see if what I’m talking about is true. If you don’t try out what I’m suggesting, you understandably might think I’m nuts. You need to do your best to actually try it out for yourself and attempt to physically get going as best you can, meaning out of your normal “comfort” (re: uncomfortable) zone and really move. You should try making some silly noises and doing some playfully zany stuff. You should literally stop being serious for a few minutes, as best as you can.

I know this isn’t what we’re used to in terms of advice for stress reduction and might even sound kind of obscene. But let me be blunt: It works. That’s why we’re starting with it. And while I love things like meditation—and we’ll go over an effective meditation exercise you’ll probably like later—the simple truth of the matter is that meditation and other exercises like it are hardly guaranteed to get you out of your own head or rapidly reduce your stress level. Especially if you meditate as a disciplined practice, as some of us have done. For instance, there are times you’ll be sitting on a cushion meditating, all rosy and happy, and the birds will be chirping and the sun will be filtering in…and then there will be all those other times when you feel like crap and meditating becomes your self-made prison. Introspective, quiet stress reduction exercises, such as meditation, can sometimes lead to mental anguish, over-analysis, and just plain lousiness.

Not being serious, being really playful for a few minutes, never allows this. When done wholeheartedly, with your whole body, not being serious is too physical to allow you to stay in your own head. If you put a hundred percent effort into being playful for only a couple minutes, you’ll start feeling better. It’s just how our bodies function. It isn’t special, it just works! And, having tried many different relaxation exercises in my life, I’ll always take effective over special. If you feel stuck and are looking for a direct way to rapidly relieve stress and stop overthinking, being playfully unserious is probably it.

Test it out and you’ll see what I mean. You can’t mess it up. Just stop being serious for a few minutes and play around. Here are a few general examples of fun exercises you can start toying around with:

-Moving your body (i.e. your arms, legs, butt, neck, face, feet, fingers etc.) around in a silly way.

-Talking in a funny voice.

-Spinning in circles.

-Dancing in whatever way you like.

-Jumping up and down.

-Making sounds like an animal.

-Singing in a ridiculous voice.

-Anything else that strikes you as childlike or kind of absurd…

There are hundreds of variations and combinations of these playful actions. The options are open-ended and entirely flexible (if you would like to see examples of things you can do, check out www.stopbeingserious.com for videos). Everything emotional—both good and bad—stems from our thinking, and when we wholeheartedly play with our bodies, we get to see this for ourselves. All of a sudden, our thinking is allowed to shift from stagnation to openness, and we notice that we feel better. We feel less burdened. Our stressful thoughts seem to disappear. It sometimes even seems that all our thoughts disappear.

At first, this can come as a big surprise. And that’s to be expected. We’ve rediscovered something about our mind/body relationship that we’ve usually ignored since childhood. By vigorously moving our body around, even for just a short period of time, we can directly impact our thinking in a positive way. It’s not possible to be seriously worried about something when we put our complete effort into being physically playful. By behaving like this—whether through our movements, voices, or gestures—we eliminate the excessive stress that has built up in our mind. We’re still the same responsible, caring person we were before, it’s just that, all of a sudden, we no longer feel stuck with our anxious or depressing thoughts.

None of this is hard. In our present culture, it might seem crazy, but for most of human existence, it probably would have seemed normal. “Words, the Bushmen say, are only useful for teasing one another,” Bradford Keeney relates in The Bushman Way of Tracking God. “In teasing, we are less likely to get stuck in any particular belief, attitude, or form of knowing. This makes the Bushmen as different from the rest of the world as anyone could imagine. When they see our books and are told how we use them to teach us about life, they fall to the ground laughing, saying we are crazy. They are being kind. They really think we are spiritual idiots.”

The Bushmen still connect with God—or the universe, or our deeper nature, or whatever you want to call it—through physical movement, just as numerous indigenous cultures have done throughout human history. This physical/spiritual connection was likely a fundamental part of many hunter-gatherer societies, as it still is with the Bushmen today. But in our modern “civilized” society, most of us don’t ever even acknowledge it.

We’ve forgotten about the relationship between our body and mind. Instead, we complain about our body’s perceived limitations—which are often just made up mental projections that we believe—and totally miss the bigger picture. We think ourselves sick because we’re unaware of the inherent freedom we possess. We don’t move, we don’t sing, we don’t jump—it would seem crazy to do that. So, instead, we sit, we think and we spoil. It’s a form of accepted madness, but it’s madness nonetheless. Our mind/body relationship is usually compromised for no good reason.

Not being overwhelmed by your thinking will allow you to see this for yourself. We realize, when we stop being so serious, that the problems we have don’t really exist. They’re all made up in our heads. Without the conscious thought of a problem, there is no problem. Nothing is real in the way we normally think it is. It’s just thoughts passing by, with no deeper meaning to be found behind them.

The relief from this realization can be enormous and provide us with a deep level of comfort: We may have many, many perceived problems; our lives may seem extremely troubled and messy, but at the end of the day, we’re full of shit. Life is a mirage, created by our thinking. We can take solace in that. And that’s why I strongly encourage you to at least briefly try being playful to see where it takes you. What you find might shock you.

As adults, we’re basically not supposed to act this way. Not that it’s bad—it’s just so far out there people don’t even know how to register it. However, if we do it, our lives open up. I see I’m free, right now. I see that my thoughts of individuality are actually false and that there ultimately is no real self there, no separate person! Of course, it sounds pretty New Agey when described like this, but it also happens to be true. You only suffer so deeply because you think you suffer. Without thinking, there is no you, and that’s that. It might sound esoteric, but you can experience it right now by rolling around on the floor like a dog.

Let’s stop being serious, shall we? This simple truth is so good and easy that we convince ourselves it has to be bad instead. Not many of us are like a Kabbalist I once met, who said, “I just remind myself that life is always much, much, much better than I think it is.” And he was right.

I don’t know why we don’t live more from this kinder viewpoint—whether the origins of our discontent are personal, cultural, genetic or whatever—but we continuously strive and are serious. And it’s helpful to recognize that the vast majority of this striving is optional. Our thoughts get in the way of us actually living. We’re soldiers fighting an unnecessary war. Life is not what we think it is. It is beyond our ordinary thinking. Our rational, problem-solving mind is only a small part of everything that is happening right now. If we think we have the answers, or need the answers, we’re wrong.

We have this innate capability to think less by having fun with our body and voice. We shouldn’t forget about it. It gives us a real sense of freedom compared to what we’re used to. Usually, we let this energy just sit there and do nothing with it. But the energy is there. We can easily access it, if we like.

So, ease yourself into being less serious, less in your head. What’s nice is we can playfully work on it in private. No one else has to ever know what we’re doing, unless we want them to. For instance, to quickly reduce stress, you can go into a room where no one will bother you, put music on your headphones, and gradually begin moving around more and more. Dance around and enjoy yourself! No one is watching you. Or go into the bathroom, look in the mirror, and start making funny faces. Or go to the car and loudly sing along to music you like. Pick something fun like this that you can easily do.

If you find that you feel awkward when you start doing a playful exercise like this, keep on doing it. Initial awkwardness and feelings of embarrassment are completely understandable and expected—simply ignore them and work through it by continuing to do what you’re doing. Gently escalate the playfulness, no matter how negative your initial mental chatter might be. If your thoughts start telling you what you’re doing is stupid, it means you’re on the right track. Just keep moving and soon those thoughts will disappear.

I’m an informal person who’s done this kind of stuff for years, and I still sometimes feel self-conscious when I start doing it. Even in private! That’s because it’s out of our normal comfort zone. But after a few minutes of moving around or making funny noises, you won’t feel awkward—because you can’t. Your body will be working too hard for this awkwardness to remain. Just giving full effort to what you’re doing makes it so that most of your mental stress has to disappear within a minute or two.

It can be very helpful to listen to music you like while doing this. Get lost in the music, and let your body take over. If you’re in a confined space or in poor health, your movements can be small. Big or small, as long as the movements you make are done in earnest, they’ll be effective. And you can always make up for a lack of movement by making louder and more playful noises. This playfulness can become part of your daily routine and incorporated in any way you like. There are endless ways of exploring and expanding upon it as you go along, and the results will often exceed your expectations.

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH SELF-TALK

Thought is limitation.

– Lester Levenson

It’s important to emphasize that there’s nothing wrong with getting angry, upset or scared. These are normal feelings for a reason, and those emotions often aren’t as profound as we think they are. Such feelings can surface with no apparent explanation, and we don’t always have to be so reactive towards their presence. We can better accept difficult feelings by being unserious towards them and seeing that they’re not necessarily a big deal. Again, we see there’s nothing at stake in the way we think there is—so we can stop constantly pretending otherwise.

However, it’s often easier said than done. But, on the other hand, consider this: Have you ever really suffered except when you took your thoughts seriously? I mean, have you? If we reflect, we see we only continually suffer because we take our thinking so seriously. We’re in our heads. We think we have to be serious. Simply be aware of this, and then start gently working with it, playing with it.

Even when our body is ill, if we’re sick and physically in pain, the real continuous pain is being caused by what we’re thinking about when we’re in that state. Our thoughts—and not our bodily issues—are what are keeping us in perpetual distress. Our body knows what to do in that situation much better than our conscious mind does, but that rational mind of ours still tries to constantly interfere. Stop it! Stop being serious! Don’t think! Don’t think!

Get real. Keep those negative thoughts away from seriously judging your body. They have no right to judge it like that. Those thoughts are almost all just flotsam and should be treated as such. Do your best not to buy into them. Negative thoughts might be there, and that’s fine, but you don’t have to empower them and play into their seriousness. Those negative mental judgments about your body, if you take them seriously, will make your physical suffering worse—while positive thoughts will likely help improve your physical condition. Think positively about your situation as best as you can, if at all possible. This seems obvious, but we have a tendency not to do it.

Again, overthinking is what really makes us feel bad in such a situation. Don’t buy into the logical arguments the voice in your head makes when you feel physically drained or in pain. Attempt to be unserious and notice the thinking for what it primarily is: Bullshit. Talking out loud to yourself can be very useful here, as well as in any other situation where the voice in your head just won’t seem to shut up.

Self-talk—speaking out loud to yourself—enables you to see the duplicity of your inner talking. The overthinking in your head can be erased by speaking out loud about how ridiculous and unnecessary that thinking is. By vocalizing your problems to yourself—whether problems with your thinking or your problems in general (which are all in your head anyway)—the bothersome thinking often disappears.

Talking out loud to yourself can be especially effective if the tone is informal and unserious. For instance, you can be off the cuff and say stuff out loud to yourself like, “Jeesh, buddy, you’re sure acting like an asshole today, the whole day long you’re yammering about all this stupid stuff that makes no sense at all. You’re ruining my day with this crap; I’ve had enough of this, yadda, yadda, yadda…” You can go on and on, talking to yourself in an informal, uncensored way like this for several minutes or longer (you can even do it for hours on end).

Another good self-talk option is to speak very slowly and gently to yourself. Speak out loud slowly but authoritatively, pausing between sentences to maximize the effect, saying things like, “Alright, it’s time to cool down…everything is fine…there’s no need for all this…my mind’s running, but I can see right through it…these thoughts mean nothing…I feel the peace underneath everything…I am that peace.” Continue to speak out loud in this slow, soothing manner for as long as you want. It’s as if you’re hypnotizing your inner voice to quiet it down.

Don’t be afraid to explore different ways of speaking out loud to yourself; the above ideas are just general examples to get you started. You can speak out loud to yourself in so many different ways and tones—calmly, sarcastically, inquisitively, sternly, lovingly, softly, loudly, quickly, slowly, etc. There are numerous options! Find out what works best for you by experimenting and you’ll soon discover that your inner voice usually can’t compete with your actual voice. I’m reminded of old cartoons when I speak out loud to myself—the devil on one side of my shoulder and the angel on the other side. The devil is our overthinking inner voice, while our out loud voice is the angel. So, talk out loud to yourself when you feel bad!

If you’re feeling particularly lousy, another excellent (and slightly more extreme) exercise you can do is use a sad voice to moan and complain. I mean, say stuff in a sad voice like, “I feel bad. I’m devastated. Oh, I feel bad, I feel awful, I’m gonna die…” Feel free to whimper, groan, swear and get progressively louder as you start moaning about this awful horribleness. Really let those negative feelings out. Be as melodramatic as you want (for example: “This is the worst thing ever, I’m going to fucking die! Oh, my God! Oh, my fucking God! I’m gonna die!” Throw in some screaming for good measure, if you want).

As you carry on with this complaining, allowing yourself to become progressively more dramatic and ridiculous, something happens. Soon, after a few minutes, you’ll realize how absolutely absurd the whole thing is in the first place. You “feel” bad—so what? You realize it’s not a big deal! There’s no real problem here, just a made up one in our head. A fun, outrageous exercise like this sets us straight and makes us see how silly getting swept away by our emotions often is.

If we’re by ourselves, we can do something similar when we get angry. We can absolutely allow ourselves to get angry and mad, loudly cursing and getting more carried away. If we do this, surprisingly, those strong feelings of anger usually will deflate themselves quickly. Society has told us we’re not supposed to get angry in this way, but if we’re alone and get angry like this, we discover that advice is baseless. It’s good to get angry occasionally.

We often just need to blow off steam. Expressing sadness or anger in such a way is just like any other verbal or physical activity we do with a hundred percent effort. Sooner or later, the pure physical energy you expend erases the negative overthinking that before seemed so overwhelming. We realize we usually get upset…over nothing. In short, to alleviate difficult emotions, it’s fine to first embrace them fully. They’re then unlikely to hang around for long, which isn’t the case if we try to suppress them.

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH INDIFFERENCE AND STILLNESS

Who would you be without the thought?

– Byron Katie

Not thinking as much will help you live a better life. However, the degree to which it can get better might surprise you. We sometimes find that not only does our mental health improve, but other important aspects of our life do as well, like our physical health, relationships, or financial situation. These unexpected benefits can be quite profound and are worth touching upon here. I’ll also mention a few teachers whose advice on this underappreciated subject is worth exploring, if you’re interested.

As we’ve gone over, our overactive conscious thinking is often resistant and negative—it generally makes us feel bad. Our overthinking makes us worry and feel anxious for no good reason. It also makes us too critical of ourselves as well as others. If this overthinking is reduced by being less serious—and a calmer type of thinking naturally takes its place—better things are going to happen. If we feel better on the inside, we’ll get better results on the outside. This basically seems like common sense.

But there’s more to it than just that because few of us recognize the far-reaching power of our thoughts. Most of our problems we create for ourselves by thinking in a totally unproductive way. Émile Coué, probably my favorite teacher on this subject, summed it up well when he said, “The influence of the mind upon the body exists undeniably, and is infinitely greater than is commonly supposed.” Our mind is much more powerful than we give it credit for. And our continual patterns of thought carry far more weight than we know.

Because of our ignorance on this topic—we obviously were never taught anything like it in school—we aren’t aware that the problems in our life often come from our steady stream of negative overthinking. They can be a direct result of that subtle, but constant, mental negativity. If that stream can somehow be reduced down to a trickle, many of our problems will go with it. So, let me share with you another paradoxical piece of advice: Sometimes, the most important thing you can do to improve certain problematic aspects of your life is not think about them.

Since we’re so prone to think negatively—as opposed to even somewhat positively—about things that really bother us (such as our health, relationships or financial issues) it’s often better not to think about those things at all, unless completely necessary. Instead of continually pondering our stressful problems, as we have such a tendency to do, we can take a radically different approach by deciding to hardly ever think about them except when it’s obvious we have to.

If you test this out, even for a short period of time, the results will probably surprise you. A significant emotional burden is immediately lifted off your shoulders when you stop thinking about your problems all the time. In the very least, this sense of relief will allow you to approach things more mindfully—and it will usually do more than just that. That’s because not thinking about our problems allows them to be resolved without our direct, conscious intervention.

Ironically, by not always thinking of a rational solution, an excellent solution will often present itself to us, with none of the normal stress involved. Richard Dotts brilliantly explains and explores this paradox in his book Dissolve The Problem. He writes, “One common objection people have is, ‘I can’t just ignore my problems and do nothing about them! They will not just go away if I stop thinking about them!’ The truth is exactly the opposite. Your problems will go away if you stop thinking about them altogether.”

This idea might initially sound ridiculous, but if you experiment with it, you’ll begin to see its practical effectiveness. We tend to have a lot of mental resistance in our head—a negativity bias or whatever we want to call it—and a bunch of negative thoughts on subjects that bother us each and every day. What would happen if those thoughts weren’t continually there? What would happen if we stopped believing we constantly had issues we needed to think about and resolve? You’ll likely find that if the majority of that stressful, problem-solving type of thinking disappears from your everyday life, external problems will start disappearing for you as well.

I mean, should it really be a surprise that when we predominately think serious and negative thoughts about something that bothers us, it doesn’t just affect our inner emotional state but also the actual state of our health? Or affect the state of relationships we care about? Or our financial state? If given time, such prolonged worrisome thinking affects all aspects of our outer reality. We can let go of a lot of that stressful overthinking just by being less serious and knowing that it isn’t always necessary to think about a problem in order for it to be resolved. Drop the belief that you always have to think about it.

Few of us are relaxed enough to not ever think seriously about our problems, but with practice, we can get much better at it. It’s easy to cut down the amount of time you spend brooding over your perceived problems—you just decide to do it and follow through with it as best you can. If you find that difficult to do, a helpful tool to make it easier is to schedule a “worry time” once or twice a day and attempt to only allow yourself to worry about your problems during those short, allotted timeslots (i.e. like 10 or 15 minutes at a time). This tool can become especially effective if you also use some of the other suggestions we’ve already gone over. Fully allowing yourself a short, specific time to worry each day can dramatically reduce the amount of time you actually spend thinking and worrying about your problems.

Likewise, understand that when something important is needed to be thought about in detail, and acted upon, it will usually appear obvious to you. You’ll feel and know you have to think and act on the issue at this point, and you very likely will because it feels right to do so. Again, when something important actually needs to be done, it seems obvious most of the time! You’re not going to deny (or second-guess) doing something that seems obvious. But it should also be obvious—especially after having read this guide—that most of your thoughts about the problems in your life are not necessary to act upon. They’re usually just made-up, entirely negative, worst-case mental meanderings and mirages. We can become far more indifferent towards them.

Most negative thoughts shouldn’t be treated seriously, let alone acted upon. We should be less reactive towards their presence. It’s like spending all week worrying about going to a doctor’s appointment. We’re only actually with the doctor for ten minutes, but we worry about it all week! And then he tells us everything looks okay and to come back in six months. Do you see how much unnecessary worrying we did? It seems silly in retrospect. Well, if you consider it, you’ll probably realize that almost everything is like this mentally when it comes to things that bother us. As Mark Twain joked, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”

The majority of our worries are delusional. We spend so much time thinking about entirely hypothetical negative situations. It’s okay to stop. Neville Goddard, another great teacher on this subject, advised, “To dissolve a problem that now seems so real to you all that you do is remove your attention from it. In spite of its seeming reality, turn from it in consciousness. Become indifferent and begin to feel yourself to be that which would be the solution of the problem.”

How would you “remove your attention” from your problem and “turn from it in consciousness”? You simply stop being so serious about it! Drop the belief that you have to think and worry about it! Do your best to stop thinking about it in your normal, rational, stressful way. Yet another advantage of doing this is it frees you to imagine what the solution to your problem could possibly feel like, as Neville touched upon. By dropping rational thought, you can imagine the wonderful feeling that an ideal resolution to your problem would bring; that huge sense of relief.

Evoking this fulfilled, relieved feeling can be rather simple when we’re not overthinking. We usually call it daydreaming. But it’s not really dreaming whatsoever, once we begin to understand the creative power of our thoughts and imagination. While it seems impossible to daydream positive outcomes to problems when we’re overwhelmed by our thoughts, it can become an enjoyable activity when we’re mentally relaxed. Being unburdened from our rational thinking enables us to pleasantly play with our imagination like this, if we want.

But, regardless of whether we decide to play with our imagination, it should be clear that trying to improve difficult situations by constantly thinking seriously about them only adds to our stress level. Again, the paradox is we don’t actually have to think about these problematic situations all that much. We spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about potentially awful future events, all of which are just made up in our head. And it stresses us out. Indeed, many of us decide to think about problems all day long and face the consequences of our persistent negative attention on these topics. Not thinking helps you go beyond all that. It takes you past your normal (un)comfort zone. If there are no thoughts, what is there to improve anyway? Nothing! Everything is perfect already just as it is—we just think it isn’t.

Being playful and unserious allows you to not think and be in this present moment where nothing needs changing, where there are no real problems. If your bothersome thoughts about a particular situation don’t disappear, at the very least you become far more indifferent towards them, and they lose their emotional power over you. This indifference is very important, as Neville mentioned in the quote above. It allows you to have a sense of calmness even when negative thoughts are raging inexplicably in your head and you don’t like your outer circumstances.

You can cultivate and deepen this sense of calmness from a meditative state, learning to let go of problems that bother you through sheer indifference. I said I wanted to share a meditation exercise with you, and here it is. It’s very simple. It will seem too simple for some of you at first, but that’s okay. As with being unserious, the simplicity is what makes it work well, especially when practiced on a regular basis.

The exercise works like this: When we’re playfully unserious, we’re so physically active we don’t care if bad, stressful thoughts are there—because we don’t believe them. We know they’re not real. They’re illusory projections. Similarly, when we’re very still—essentially doing nothing—we notice the same thing. We can focus and sink into these physical feelings of deep relaxation when we’re comfortably still and not care about our thoughts. We can feel into our natural sense of well-being and fulfillment by becoming so physically at ease.

So, consider this meditative exercise to be mainly physical. That makes it both effective and easy. You don’t have to think or worry about the mental component. For practical purposes, assume there isn’t a mental component. That means you can’t mess it up. Just sink into the sense of relaxation you feel whether you’re sitting in a comfortable chair, lying down in bed, or whatever makes you comfortable.

Those crazy negative thoughts and emotions can come when you’re like this…and you don’t have to care. You’re indifferent to them. You’re neutral and non-reactive. They’re there. So what? Physically relax your body and forget to worry about them. Let the physical ease of the situation be your only guide. Don’t worry about adding anything. Don’t do anything. Let the thoughts come and go; they don’t matter. Just stay relatively still, and sink into the physical relaxation—that nice, peaceful feeling of comfort—for as short or long a time as you want.

You can’t mess up being still, as long as you don’t think you’re messing it up. So don’t think! But it doesn’t really matter what you think anyway. Just stay physically still, as relaxed as you can. The thoughts come and go, and you know they don’t matter. There’s a lot of power in this physical stillness, just like there’s a lot of power in very active physical movement. In both cases, we can just cut down the mental seriousness of the situation with our physical behavior, whether it’s by being very still or very active. We just gently cut down, cut down, cut down…easy peasy.

The concept of “vibing out” like this is so far removed from our normal everyday behavior. Our cultural influences. What we’re supposed to do. We usually have it in our mind that there has to be a serious mental focus. That we’re supposed to do something. You’ll notice that even when you’re not really doing anything, you’re still trying to do something else at the same time. Like when you’re waiting in line at the store. Or sitting on the bus. Or eating a sandwich. We can’t just relax and do a very simple activity like this. We get caught up in our mental minutia. We pull out our cell phone because we can’t stand the thought of not doing anything for a few moments. In turn, when we try to mentally relax, we find that we can’t because we’re so obsessed with our thoughts of what to do next, what we have to do. It’s a mental trap we’ve created for ourselves.

Vibing out is different because there are no problems. And there is no next. We acknowledge that we’re doing nothing. And this acknowledgement is potent. It destroys the mental concept that we normally have: That we should be doing something. So, we’re sitting down. Or we’re lying down. We’re physically as relaxed as we can be, and we’re very aware of our thoughts, of our feelings, of what’s going through our head, through our body.

But we don’t engage with it in an active way. We don’t entertain it in an active way. We say, “This is all here—and I’m doing nothing with it.” It’s not a rejection or a strong denial of feelings or thoughts. That would be too forceful. Likewise, it’s not a celebration of good thoughts or happy feelings. That, again, would often involve too much effort. This is just negation. A neutral kind of negation. And it’s done by indifference. It’s an indifference to the feelings and thoughts going through your mind and body.

And you cannot fail in this indifference.

If you find yourself getting swept up in a series of thoughts—you start thinking about what you have to do in an hour or later that evening; you start planning out things mentally in your head or thinking about what somebody thinks of you; or you start feeling anxious or stressed, or whatever—it doesn’t matter. You just notice it, and you don’t try to suppress it. It’s too difficult for most of us to suppress anything like that, especially consistently. There are so many thoughts all the time, so many feelings all the time coming up. You can’t suppress things forcefully and expect it to actually work. All we do is notice and say, “Whatever.” Nobody ever says, “Whatever.” No one just shrugs and says, “Ah, whatever.” To quote the Zen monk Kodo Sawaki, “A thief breaks into an empty house. There’s nothing to steal and there’s no one to catch him.” That’s kind of what we’re talking about.

So, this type of meditation isn’t going to feel special or spectacular, usually, and it’s not going to feel bad either. You might think this sounds kind of bleak, this do-nothing, indifferent awareness. But when you become indifferent like this, you also become in touch with something that’s beyond your normal conception of yourself. The “bigger you” arises, and it’s just plain better than whatever we consciously can hold in our rational mind. As H. Emilie Cady eloquently wrote, “Be in a state, mentally, of trustful passivity, and see God’s saving power.” That’s true abundance. It’s here with us, right now. And vibing out allows us to see it.

Indifference, the way we’re talking about it, is meant to be “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” because a deeper sense of happiness and joy often isn’t euphoric like we think it will be. If we’re to describe it with words, which is difficult, true happiness often seems more like profound, peaceful resignation and total acceptance. Vibing out, meditating like this, you align with that. And this alignment usually isn’t overly ecstatic, as some New Age and religious teachers can make it sound. And, of course, it’s not particularly amped up or anything, like some motivational teachers talk about in terms of conjuring up good feelings. It’s just intimately connecting with what you already are right now. And we do it naturally as long as we don’t think much because it’s beyond rational thought.

How we can practically do it is by being more playful and not serious with our thinking, as we’ve talked about, and we can also reconnect with it by vibing out. The less you care about your thoughts and passing feelings—which you can do in a relaxed, passive way by relaxing your body—the more easily you can be at peace. This is not esoteric. It’s practical.

Let me conclude this guide by telling you that I remember being outside of keyboarding class when I was 13 years old and talking to my friend. And I remember telling him that when I grew up, I wanted to be a bum. Now, nothing has really ever changed for me. I still feel that way. Of course, when I say bum, I don’t mean a destitute or anything like that. My point is just that I never wanted to be anything in society. Because, even though I was young, I was honest with myself and recognized that there was nothing really to be that was worth being.

Nothing culturally is the way it’s pumped up to be. You think that the prince of Monaco really has it that great? Or that athlete, or that actress, or that Nobel laureate, or that garbage man, or anybody? Well, they do have it great if they enjoy it and are at peace. If they’re happy in the moment a lot of the time. But this idea of being or becoming something special is really a sham. When we had the aspiration to be somebody special in a pure way, it was probably when we were like six years old. We wanted to be a fireman, or a ballerina, or something like that, and it was a genuine aspiration. Then we lost it.

As our aspirations change with our age, they become less genuine. And we become less genuine because we get lost in our thoughts and our ideas of what certain things will bring us. And the truth is they won’t bring us anything. There are no things, only thoughts. And they aren’t real either. So, the only thing to aspire to, if you want to aspire to anything, is some satisfaction right now. A moment-to-moment sense of peace. A very basic thing. It’s something that we likely had when we were much younger, for the most part. And something we often do not have now.

For instance, perhaps you now have the job title that you once aspired to, and maybe it doesn’t bring you the satisfaction you thought it would. You’re not an anomaly. That’s our culture. And if you do like what you do, it’s probably because you enjoy it in the way we just mentioned and hardly ever think about what you do in relation to anything else. Regardless, doing nothing—vibing out—is a rebuttal and a protest against these foolish aspirations that we have in our mind as we get older, as we grow up. It’s becoming a bum.

If you do this even for just a short period of time each day, sit down and just do nothing…become neglectful and indifferent to your thoughts and feelings, those thoughts and feelings that you’re supposed to interact with and engage in so passionately, if you disengage from all that crap and all those lies (and I only call them that because I’m assuming that most of those thoughts and feelings are not making you feel good)…if you disengage from all that crap, something comes up that reconnects you with the present because all of the external things we want—and all the bullshit we go through to get those things—is primarily just overthinking. The hamster wheel running in our head. That’s all.

When we feel good, we’re usually not thinking much. We’re going from point A to point B when we feel good. We’re never trying to go from point A to point Z. When we’re stressed, when we’re worried about everything—or just worried about certain things or feeling anxious—usually we’re trying to get somewhere complicated. Meaning we’re trying to get from like point A to point Z or point B to point Y. We’re trying to solve a problem.

But when we’re at peace with what’s happening around us, when we feel good, usually we’re just going from A to B. Or maybe A to C. But certainly not more than from A to D. Anything beyond A to D is just insanity. And insanity is how we have a tendency to operate—and it’s something that can be minimized. A great way to minimize it, and access your natural wellness, is simply to stop being so serious and vibe out a few times a day. Lightly focus on the quiet peace that’s already within you, on what you already have and can’t lose, if you want to focus on anything at all. I have a lot of confidence that just doing that will make your life better.

The less you mentally try hard to get something—the less you aspire to be someone or do something through hard thinking—the more productive you’ll be in a real way. All you have to do is keep your wits about you and act somewhat sane, which you will. You’ll also realize you only ever have to really go from A to B, over and over again, and it’s very gratifying just to do that. There’s no resistance in that. Everything is smooth from A to B, and you realize any other route really is just getting lost in your head. You can fully feel you’re accomplishing what you want when you go from A to B and that you already have what you actually want. Because you do.

Maybe some of these concepts sound familiar to you. But they’re usually made to sound more esoteric, or difficult, than they need to be. The “relax, don’t think” and “relax, do nothing” part of life doesn’t need to be made complicated or seem like something it’s not. It doesn’t need to be formalized with breathing or mantras or postures or anything like that, unless we find those techniques beneficial in making us feel relaxed. Those things can be helpful from a technical standpoint but, at the end of the day, nothing about this is technical. When we’re in a meditation hall, or trying to conjure up some mystical energy or connect with the stars, or whatever, we often end up doing a lot of unnecessary stuff. That’s because we’re concerned about technique. At the end of the day, none of it is relevant. You want to forget all about that stuff if you want some peace right now.

Don’t think. Try less, feel better. Vibe out. It’s not the way people think it should work. It’s the way it does work. And you can find out for yourself when you move around like a monkey or just lie down and totally zone out in the way we’re talking about.

For instance, I’m telling you this with an old blue Irish blanket over me. It’s 95 degrees outside and the fan is on. My daughter is sleeping because we just got home from the splash park and she’s tired. My eye stings. I don’t know if it’s the chlorine from the splash park or something else. The point being, when you’re vibing out—when you check out mentally and don’t think, and if you make it a practice—you’re not necessarily going to look like a spectacular human being or a saint on a hill. People aren’t going to come up to you and shake your hand. You might look like a bum. I mean a Hindu sadhu does look like a bum. It isn’t glamorous. Moment-to-moment alignment with what’s around you isn’t glamorous, it’s ordinary. It just tells you everything is alright, and that’s enough. That’s all that we ever really want anyway.

We so often glamorize people and things and in the process delude ourselves. We don’t do this intentionally, but we do it nonetheless. When we don’t think, we’re set straight. If it sounds odd, that’s understandable because perhaps peace isn’t supposed to look like some guy with no shirt on, a red eye and an old blue blanket over him. Or a woman yelling happily to music in her car. Or a child dancing for no reason.

But peace seeps through all the cracks and crevices. It finds its way into everything, as long as we don’t think about it. You become better in tune with what’s around you—and better things happen to you—by giving up the notion that there’s something superior to the life you’re living. There’s not. Everything is already perfect, whether you like it or not. You become at peace with the moment by recognizing that there’s nothing better than it. And you’ll feel and know this intimately because there’s a deep satisfaction when you’re just here now and not wanting anything else. That’s vibing out, that’s not thinking.

So, to sum it up, don’t think.

About the Author

Tim Grimes is a counselor and writer/editor of multiple bestselling guides on stress management, including Relax More, Try Less and Manifestation Through Relaxation. His focus is on simplifying the stress reduction process for anyone who is interested.

For more information visit:

www.radicalcounselor.com

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T THINK

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH MOVEMENT AND NOISE

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH SELF-TALK

HOW TO STOP THINKING THROUGH INDIFFERENCE AND STILLNESS