Drop the Bags Bitch
Drop the Bags Bitch
The Paradox in Thought Work
This episode offers the silver bullet to second guessing yourself.
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Find out more about my work: www.melindagerdungcoaching.com
Book a session with me: https://calendly.com/gerdungmelinda/coaching-session
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Beat Provided By https://freebeats.io
Produced By White Hot
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Hey my friends. I wanted to talk about the paradox of thought work. So I know we've talked on here before about trusting your own knowing. And that a lot of the times, most of the time, you do know what to do. You do know what you want. There are other reasons we block our knowing, but most of the time we have a knowing. We have an intuition. We have a sense of things. And then we also talk about on here, the power of not taking everything that comes out of your brain so seriously. Like the brain is a pile of fatty meat with electricity running through it, like sometimes it farts out nonsense. And there is a power in not taking everything it spits out at face value. And these two concepts can seem to contradict each other. Well, do I trust my intuition or do I pick apart my thoughts? And the paradox of thought work is that you do both. You hate that answer, don't you? And that's okay. Life is made up of paradoxes. And this is no different. What it comes down to is usefulness. What is useful to you? I posted something on my Facebook page the other day about an exchange I had with my coworker in which the underlying premise of what he was saying is that getting old is an insult. And I wrote how I reject that premise that I think it is just nonsense, and you get to reject any premise that doesn't serve you. And I asked people what premises they want to reject. And I got some really great comments of really great things to not buy into. And also some dumb ass had to come and comment that what he rejects is the idea that you get to reject a premise that you don't like and that somehow that makes it not true. And I think this is interesting because I think a lot of people get hung up on what is true. And the problem of this is there's so much of life where you will never know what is true. Take the idea that being old is insulting. Is that true? It might be true to some people, but it isn't true for all people. There are some cultures that revere their elderly, they honor their wisdom, and they value their elders. There isn't some kind of universal truth there that we can somehow get to. It is one of those things where you can't really know what is true or not. Right? It depends on who you ask. And so for situations like those, I think it is always better to ask not what is true, but what is useful. What would be useful to me to believe about getting old? Is it useful for me to believe that getting old is awful and my value as a person will decline? Or is it useful to believe that growing old as a gift and I will become more and more wise? Or something else? Something in between? Given that growing old is probably something I'm going to have to do, it's a good idea I think to decide on purpose what I want to believe about it. And the truth is you can believe whatever you want. And it doesn't even have to be true to believe it. There are billions of people on this planet and many of them hold contradicting beliefs. Someone's got to be wrong. But it doesn't stop anyone from believing what they believe. Getting hung up on what is right just isn't very valuable. Because that's very hard to know or to prove. Useful is so much better of a metric to use. Like for instance, I could believe that I am sexy and attractive. Is that true? Well, it probably depends on who you ask. Should I get hung up on whether it's true or not? I think that will be a colossal waste of time. Because there will be no way of proving it to be true or not. Even if you polled the whole world, you wouldn't get a unanimous answer. It would be a hung jury. So better than wondering if I am truly attractive, is wondering what is useful for me to believe. Is it useful for me to believe I am attractive? How do I behave when I believe I am attractive? How do I feel when I believe I am attractive? I feel much more confident. I talk to people more easily. I go places and feel comfortable. What about when I believe I am unattractive? How do I behave then? How do I feel? Believing I am unattractive feels pretty bad. I self isolate a lot more. I don't put myself out there as much. I take far less risks. I'm way less social and less friendly. And I know this because I have believed both of those things. And those are the results I've gotten from believing each of those things. So which is more useful for me to believe? I recommend always choosing beliefs that are beneficial over true. I would rather believe something that is completely bonkers, but helps me feel the way I want to feel and live the kind of life I want to live, than to believe something that is so called true that leaves me feeling bad and living in a way I don't want. Hands down. No questions. When I talk about this, so many people get hung up on like, but what if I'm wrong? And well, you might be wrong about some things. So fucking what? If what you believed help you and made your life better, so fucking what? If I went my whole life believing that I was an attractive person, and I spent my life behaving as if that was true, and I felt good and I had a good time, but then it turned out I was wrong, so fucking what? Should I have been depressed and miserable just to be right? Sorry, but I'd rather be delusional and have a great life than right and miserable. And that's assuming you could ever know something was for sure true, right? Because most of the time you just can't. Are you going to believe some things and have people think you're crazy? Probably. I think no matter what you believe there are going to be some people who vehemently disagree with you. Other people are not a gauge of truth. Like, I think the earth being round is true. I think there's photographic evidence of this. I think it's round. But there are people out there that would strongly disagree with me. They would say the earth is flat. Am I going to question myself because there are people that disagree with me and say the earth is flat? No, no, there's no point. Because no matter what it is there are going to be people with differing opinions. There is no topic that has unanimous agreement. Nothing. So other people thinking differently or thinking you're wrong is nothing to be disturbed by because it will happen no matter what. It all comes down to what will be useful for you? What beliefs will take you where you want to go? Look at religion, so many differing opinions on religion. Who is right? We can't really know. All it comes down to is what is useful to you? What will help you in your life? Look at leaving your marriage. There are some people who might say you were wrong. There are also some people who say you are right. What are you going to believe? What will be useful to you? For me, I count it as the best choice I ever made. And that's it. Anyone is free to disagree with that. But for me, that is what is useful to believe. That's what lets me move on and never look back. It's why I have the life I have now-- a life I really enjoy. When I have a gut feeling that someone is no good and I should stay away from them, is that true? I don't really care. I honor that feeling. Maybe I'm wrong. But maybe I'm right. And I choose to believe that when my body says no, it's a no from all of me. I don't really want to stick around and see if I'm right. I think that's a waste of time. I'd rather be wrong and wrongly misjudge people, than be right and full of regret. To me, that's a matter of safety. I would rather wrongly misjudge someone 1000 times than put myself in danger once. To me, it is way more useful to be overly cautious. than not. And so, my friends is what I have for you. In the face of the unknowable, choose what is useful. Until next time, be well.