Revisiting guilt, shame, and fear

[mat422]

There is a book of his called "Practicing the Power of Now", which is much more streamlined. Ultimately though, you don't need it as long as you can be present and dis-identify with your thoughts. Watch and observe them. Notice how your thoughts are "there" but what you can hear/feel/see is something else.

If you're watching tv, do you think YOU are the tv? No, that's ridiculous. But then, why do you assume you are the thoughts that you can see as well?

If we WERE our thoughts, we would not be aware of them or at least, wouldn't be able to observe them. Like the tv. If we were the tv, we would be unaware of ourselves and what we were playing. But because we are an observer who either sits on the couch watching tv, or goes through life seeing/listening to/feeling our thoughts, we are something else.

If you FEEL a piece of wool, are YOU the wool?

If you HEAR a song, are YOU the song?

If you SEE a sunset, are YOU the sunset?

Now apply that to the thoughts and feelings that go on inside of you.

Yeah I've always learned by doing, so I really have no need to read anymore about it. The less reading the better for me, less ideas to get caught up in.

Looks like again after reading your post I was still hanging onto thoughts and feelings. Like I said before I'm still very reluctant to disidentify because I'm worried I'll become stuck in that observer state and ultimately lose empathy for people. When thoughts and emotions become more of an observational thing, there's a tendency to forget how others process emotions and want to urge them to just let it go. But not everyone has the self awareness to be able to do that.