![]() I just sent off my fiction manuscript to my editor and friend in Vermont. My mind therefore is a total blank. I'm not even sure what to make for breakfast. So, nothing new comes to me to share with you today. Instead, I offer up one of my favorite mind-transformation practices that has helped me deal with dark and negative thoughts. This is an excerpt from my book, The Wheel of Initiation. Wherever I went, a new life begun, hidden in the grass, or waiting beyond the trees. There is a spirit abiding in everything. –William Stafford, from the poem “You Don’t Know the End,” in The Way It Is Back, a couple decades ago, I found myself at times inundated with certain dark thoughts that just seemed to appear randomly and out of nowhere. They would show up at different times in my life and interfere with an otherwise pleasant time. They didn’t seem to have any cause. Asking why they existed only generated more unhappiness on my part, so I decided to pay more attention to when they arose. Knowing that the medicine is next to the wound, that the solution is within the question, I noticed how, if it weren’t for these random dark thoughts, I would be feeling connected to my experience at the time. I would be more present. In fact, they tended to show up at times that would otherwise be particularly beautiful. Skillful means: You Become the Trickster In this case you choose to become like the Heyoka, the Trickster. I have shared this practice with countless clients and students, and they report back how remarkable the results are. When negative, contrary, or dark thoughts arise in the mind, turn inwardly toward the thought as if you are about to greet it. Then do a small bow and say to it, “Thank you.” Know that this particular thought or belief would not be arising if the opposite weren’t actually true. Then notice and open up to what is really going on— touch the beauty of the moment. Turn your attention to your present experience. You then become the Trickster to the negative thoughts. You free yourself of a negative perception by not letting it block your view of reality, of the present experience. Instead it pulls you more into reality, because it becomes a flag that something beautiful, something real is actually hap- pening right now. Let’s say you are enjoying a wonderful conversation with a friend, and you begin to have thoughts about what an idiot you are, or how bad you feel about your body, or something along those lines. Then identify these thoughts as flags and turn and face them. Bowing to them in gratitude, you say, “Oh, thank you, you would not be showing up if something beautiful weren’t happening.” The Trickster has taken back the moment. Soon that particular flavor of negativity will stop showing up—you have tricked it into oblivion, because it no longer works to distract you from the moment or to undermine your experience.
4 Comments
sue schuetz
10/16/2019 08:18:19 am
hi julie: i appreciate this advice. when i talked to a therapist years ago and tried to describe this type of thinking, she called it "catastrophic thinking." would you concur with this?
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Julie Tallard Johnson
10/16/2019 08:13:01 pm
Yes, catastrophic but also dark....
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Kate
10/17/2019 06:36:24 pm
Congratulations on sending off your manuscript! And yet, you think of us who grow by your weekly wisdom. Thank you. I am in awe.
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Julie Tallard Johnson
10/17/2019 06:42:49 pm
Thank you Kate. I love my writers!! And appreciate knowing you read my blogs and that they inspire you.
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©2024 Julie Tallard Johnson, MSW, LCSW
Mentor, therapist, citizen
Transformational & Embodied Counselor & Mentor
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Mentor, therapist, citizen
Transformational & Embodied Counselor & Mentor
Most rights reserved. Admin