The Get to Principle by Ted Larkins

Author:Ted Larkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2020-02-24T00:00:00+00:00

Seven

Ending Thought Indulgence

Applying the Get To Principle in my everyday life has been a lifesaver, constantly bringing me back to compassion and gratitude and into the present moment. We’ve discussed how being in control of your thoughts and choosing Get To thoughts over Victim thoughts is a key to creating. However, there are times when no matter what we do—repeating the Get To mantra, meditating, writing out an action plan, making a vision board, chanting, stating true-self intentions, whatever—our minds are a whirlwind of thoughts that we feel we can’t stop. Have you had that experience? Times when your thoughts are so out of control that you can’t seem to get anything done? This is beyond the random wandering that our minds usually do. This is thinking on overdrive, usually about one particular subject, over and over and over.

I recognized this as a phenomenon, almost a sickness, we all have at times. I call it thought indulgence. This is an incessant thought or thoughts, beyond everyday thinking, focusing on one particular idea that repeats in your head. Thoughts of losing everything. Thoughts of winning everything. It’s a conversation you plan to have later with your spouse, child, or boss that plays over and over in your mind. Thought indulgence is one of—if not the most—paralyzing functions of the human mind. Eckhart Tolle says, “Here’s a new spiritual practice for you: don’t take your thoughts too seriously.” Good luck with that when you are experiencing thought indulgence.

To indulge means “to treat with unearned favor” or, more simply, “to give in to something.” When we give in to these ceaseless thoughts, when we allow them to run amok, we’re allowing the mind to control not only how we are but who we are and what we are creating. How? By its incessant desire to indulge in whatever it’s thinking at the moment.

A thought indulgence can be either positive or negative. We can indulge in thoughts we’re going to be rich and famous or indulge in thoughts that feel like they’ll make us go insane.

As I was writing my first book, a self-published memoir titled Get To Be Happy, and as positive reviews to the manuscript started coming in from friends and family (yep, those “real” reviews), my thought indulgence of selling a million copies, being on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, getting rich and famous, and being on easy street almost bankrupted me. I allowed my rich thoughts to run amok. My ego mind was a wild beast of continuous thinking of an imaginary future, sitting happily ever after at the end of the utopian rainbow, hugging my pot of gold.

What’s the big deal with wanting more? Simply this: I lost focus. I didn’t do the work necessary, with clarity, to succeed as a writer. There was no tension created between actual reality and where I wanted to go. I lost sight of where I was. The emerging future was shadowed by the all-consuming thought indulgence.

I was smug and spent hours in self-grandiose planning for my television debut that didn’t come.

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