Don't mind your mind
Hey, gang. Tony Cuseo at your service.
I’m here to provide you with reason number 13,986 on why your mind can’t be trusted.
Here’s a little story I made up that sums up my (mostly) useless mind. See if it sounds familiar...
So I’m hanging out with a friend of mine, who for the sake of ease, and for the sake of this story, I’ll just call “God.”
So me and God are hanging out, right? And everything is going just fine until God tells me that she didn’t bring the lemon-flavored sparkling water that I asked for. She brought berry-flavored sparkling water instead.
Now, I know for a fact that the berry-flavored sparkling water tastes like shit. And what’s more, I know that anyone who buys the berry flavor is a moron. So at this point, it’s painfully obvious to me that God is an idiot.
And what’s more, I’m certain she bought this berry-flavored sparkling water just to spite me! So I curse her out in my head and decide once and for all that she’s a thoughtless, selfish, asshole.
But then, God tells me that she went to three different stores to try and find the lemon-flavored sparkling water that I wanted, and none of them had it. She even asked one of the employees if they would check in the warehouse and see if they had any there.
That’s when the employee explained to God that there’s a nationwide shortage of lemon-flavored sparkling water due to some sort of lemon disease that’s going around.
It turns out God picked the berry-flavored sparkling water because she remembered this one time a few years ago when the two of us went out for frozen yogurt and I ordered a raspberry and blackberry swirl. She figured I liked berries and since she couldn’t find the lemon-flavored sparkling water anywhere, the berry-flavored one would be the next best thing.
So then, it dawns on me that God isn’t a selfish asshole. She’s actually the sweetest being ever. I can’t believe she went to three separate stores and that she remembered our frozen yogurt date from all those years ago! I’m certain that she is the most thoughtful, caring, and generous being I have ever known in my whole damn life.
The End
I have exaggerated some here of course, in order to amuse myself, but what I’m pointing to is the arbitrary, petty, biased, irrational, and delusional nature of your mind.
By default, the mind is rigid and binary — good/bad, selfish/generous, God/Devil.
If someone does something you like, they’re a good person. If they do something you don’t like, they’re bad. Case closed.
That is until that person you wrote off as bad does something you think is good. If they do that often enough, you might then decide they’re actually a good person. Or, you may convince yourself that no amount of good deeds could ever make this person anything other than evil.
Your mind is petty, unreasonable, picky, and inconsistent. If you put your faith in your mind and its judgments, you’ll probably be miserable. Because try as you might, you can’t hang onto the “good” thoughts, or change your mind, through force or willpower, into turning the “bad” thoughts into good ones.
Your best chance of not being dragged around by your mind, and living a life that’s a bit less miserable, is to get good at noticing.
When you can be aware of your thoughts without buying into them, life is pretty good.
Now, because you have a mind, you likely understand this intellectually and agree. Your mind will say, “Ok great. I’ll just do that then!” But the mind that just agreed, is the very same foolish mind I talked about earlier. The one that’s full of ever-changing evaluations and rules. The one that’s making you miserable.
And so, this is tricky business. Telling yourself not to be so petty and unreasonable doesn’t work. Agreeing that your mind isn’t to be trusted isn’t enough either (though it’s a good start).
The reason Radical Honesty works pretty good, most of the time, is because when we tell the truth out loud, we have an experience of our fickle, unreliable mind. When we get in the habit of voicing our absurd and biased judgments, we see just how insane our minds can be.
If you live out loud often enough, chances are you’ll lose all faith in your mind.
At first, this feels kind of depressing. With time, it becomes rather fun and funny — especially when the other people you’re hanging out with are doing the same thing.
When we give ourselves and others permission to say what’s true from moment to moment, we recognize just how insane we all are and we can have a good ‘ole laugh about it.
If you’d like to experience this for yourself, come join me for an upcoming workshop, listed below.
Let’s get together and tell the truth for a few days, and see if we all don’t feel a bit less weighed down by our thoughts by the end of it.
Mindlessly,
Tony
Tony Cuseo is a Radical Honesty Trainer Candidate who co-leads workshops and practice groups. He also holds certifications in Embodied Counseling and Sexological Bodywork. Tony is passionate about creating art, music, and love.
Upcoming Workshops Co-led by Tony: