Reclaiming Energy from your thoughts

Your thoughts are one means by which your energy is drained. It is also the simplest and easiest place to start reclaiming your energy. In exploring why our thoughts drain so much of our energy, we begin by looking at some of the qualities of our thoughts, and then investigate what people generally think about the most. Finally we look at how to reclaim energy from our thoughts.

Qualities of thoughts

Repetition

Thoughts are generally very repetitive. It may seem as if your thoughts are dissimilar, but they are really just many variations on a tune, and there are not many tunes, themes or patterns to the mechanics of your thoughts. This repetition and monotony is easy to see once you begin to become aware of the trends as you begin to observe them.

Identification

People also tend to think that they are there thoughts, which is of course not the case. The only thing profound about the famous statement made by René Descartes - "I think, therefore I am" is that it is a profound convolution. "I am, therefore I can think if I so choose" is a good correction. An even better one is "I am". But people have been led to believe that they are the content, the sum total of their thoughts, instead of a being that has the equipment which is able to produce thoughts while they have are limited to their physical bodies.

Defensiveness

One of these recurring themes includes defensiveness, feeling the need to defend oneself, which consumes a tremendous amount of energy. Being on the defensive happens whenever the thinking mind gets the idea that it is being threatened, or it is under attack, and it has to protect itself. Some call this the ego, which it is, but at the same time, it isn't.

Subjectivity

It is not the job of the ego to interpret the content of our reality, only to deliver it. This is because the ego cannot be objective about its contents, events and happenings. Most memories of the past is not objective either, but merely personalised interpretations of what really happened.

Being anywhere but here

Another trend of thoughts, the thinking mind and the ego is that it likes to dwell on the past, usually re-enacting, interpreting and reliving past events, or on the projections and expectations of the future. In doing this, it does a good job of preventing you to be wherever you are, or to be present.

What people think about

So what do people tend to think about the most? As with the qualitative aspect, there are not many trends, and the trends that consumes the largest amounts of energy can be listed as follows.

• Defensiveness
• Self analysis
• Self criticism
• Self-justification
• Repetition of past events
• Imagining future events & outcomes
• Judgements
• Being upset/angry
• Worry and concern

It might be of value to make a brief but honest assessment of the extent to which you spend time thinking about the above. These are part of the natural mechanics of the thinking mind, and is likely to comprise a significant part of your thoughts from day to day to a larger or lesser extent. What is of value to note is that there are many levels of subtlety to these thoughts, and it is quite likely that, at least initially, people will not be able to identify these things within themselves until they have reclaimed more energy to perceive them.

Reclaiming energy from your thoughts

At the end of the day, it is of little real benefit to know and to understand all of the intricacies of exactly how the ego and the thinking mind works. However, there is an absolutely excellent book worth reading called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, which goes into all the details of the ego and its nature. What is of tremendous value is to learn is how to reclaim energy from your thoughts, and then applying it. There are many different exercises which assist in reclaiming energy from thoughts. The simplest exercises are usually the most powerful, some of which you will find below.

Observing your thoughts

The simplest exercise in starting to reclaim energy is to observe your thoughts; Observing your thoughts without getting involved or caught up in them, but acknowledge them as they come, and let them go, and doing this as often as you can and want to. This is indeed simple, but not necessarily easy, and certainly not at the beginning. It can be said that doing this, among other things, begins to separate the "I" from the "me", which allows you to easily distinguish between the two.

Recollecting a day's thoughts

This is a tremendously powerful exercise. It goes like this...

Before going to sleep at night, take a few minutes to relax yourself and your body, in whatever way works best for you. When you are relaxed, move right back to when you woke up that morning. Then begin to recollect everything that you did, said, thought and felt from the second you woke up to the present moment, in as much detail as you possibly can in chronological order.

In doing this exercise, a few things takes place;

• Your mind very quickly learns to focus and concentrate it's attention, which it is not normally used to
• You develop the very useful faculty of recollection, which is not the same as remembering.
• You reclaim the energy which was dispersed during the day through thoughts and doings
• You become aware of the general trends of your thoughts, which is useful, but not the main focus of the exercise

Keep in mind that recollecting is not the same as remembering. There are distinct differences between the two. Initially you might have difficulty recollecting with much detail. However, by doing this exercise you are reclaiming energy that allows you to be more aware, conscious and present during the day. This in turn systematically allows you to recollect a day's events more easily and with more detail. Very soon, you will find that you are able to become aware of more details about the day's events while recollecting then when those events were actually happening. If you really develop your recollective ability, it becomes possible (and quite natural) to recollect any particular time or event in your life more vividly then when it happened. I will say this again - recollecting is not the same as remembering. In fact, you are not accessing memories at all when recollecting events. The mere process of recollecting events reclaims the energy trapped in those events.

Initially it may take between 10 and 30 minutes, but the time required decreases as you go. It is recommended to pursue this exercise for at least 7 days, although 15 is better, and there is no limit. The more, the better. Developing it into a habit is even better, but there does come a time when you no longer require it.

As an additional exercise for those who choose to pursue this for 7 or more days, you can read this and the preceding article again (Perception and How our energy is drained, ) and make a special effort to see what more you can perceive while reading them. I guarantee that there is much more then what you may have initially understood.

The next article - reclaiming energy from the past - is currently being written
The Author
30 November 2010