Stop Projecting Random And Untrue Thoughts Upon Others

11:40

11:40

Stop Projecting Random And Untrue Thoughts Upon Others

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4.6

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talks

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Meditation

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Everyone

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I play this game with myself quite often - I will make up something that someone else thinks about me, and feel sad or mad about it. Is it actually true? Do they really think that about me? Who knows. But I project onto them, like nobody's business. Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

Thoughts Emotional Regulation Parenting Mindfulness Cognitive Distortions Parent Child Relationships Relationships

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Transcript

Hello everyone! I hope that you're doing amazing wherever you are in the world. My name is Boomshakha and I welcome you to my channel. In this one, I wanted to speak to you about a comment that a person left recently and I thought it was so important to talk about this that I literally written a doubt. And I'm going to. . . Sorry, It fell to the ground. I'm going to read the comment out for you first and then we're going to talk about it. So this is what the person says. I feel like this with my mother every time I message her and I get a one-liner or an emoji back. I feel like she could care less about what I'm trying to say or I get the impression that she's like, Ugh, Leave me alone. And then this person also says, My therapist asked me recently, Has your mom ever expressed those kinds of thoughts to you before? That she doesn't care, That she thinks that you're annoying. And I'm like, Well, No, But so it serves as a reminder to stop putting thoughts or words into other people's mouths. And I read this comment and I don't know. I don't know. I don't remember who wrote it exactly. But as I was reading the comment, I wanted to go and hug the person and tell them, Yes, This is exactly what I'm talking about. This is exactly what I've been talking about in so many different videos that as an individual, As people in general, We have a tendency to do this. We have a tendency to believe that we know what other people are thinking and then to put our words into their mouth or to put our emotions into their hearts and be like, Yeah, You know, Obviously that person doesn't care about me. Yeah, Obviously that person is in love with me. Obviously, You know, That person is whatever. Right. We're sitting here. You have no idea what the other person is actually thinking. In fact, That's the whole point of being a human is that, You know, We have these brain structures where all of what's going on inside is completely empty and unobservable from the outside. Right. You can't look at it and be like, All right, Cool. That person's thinking this, This, This, This. Thankfully, You can't do that. Right. Not yet. And that's the whole point of it, That a lot of times we're sitting there thinking, Oh, My God, This person is so angry with me. Oh, My God, What am I going to do? And that person's thinking about Donald Trump. And that's why they look angry because they were thinking about something completely different. Right. But in our case, We're sitting there thinking, Ah, Yes, That person hates me now. OK, Cool. I guess this relationship's ending. And I've done this to myself many times. I do this to myself all the time, Actually. Now that I know I can kind of observe it and be like, All right, What are you doing right now? Boom. Can you stop, Please? Because you're really, Really not in the right space of mind right now. So I usually kind of stop. I cut myself off and I go for a walk or I do something else because literally it's a useless thing to do. But I notice this a lot in my past relationships where I'd be sitting there, You know, And we're both sitting there and we're having a good time. And all of a sudden I'll see his face turn a bit or I'll see expression on his face or he'll kind of turn away a bit and start doing something. And all of a sudden in my head, There is an avalanche of useless thoughts saying, Oh, My God, Oh, My God, You said something wrong. And now he hates you. And now this whole relationship is gone. Of course, You're this relationship is gone. You were he was too good for you anyways. I can't believe that he actually stayed with him for that long. And on and on and on. Right. I mean, Like it just happens as if you're like sitting there, As if there's this avalanche or typhoon of thoughts and you have no control over them. And you're projecting, Projecting all of these random thoughts and feelings upon this other person without them actually even showing you any smidgen of possibility that they actually are thinking that way. Right. And a lot of times this happens in comics. I've seen a lot of comics this way where, You know, There's a woman sitting in the man sitting and a woman's like kind of like glancing at the man and saying, Oh, My God, He must be thinking about how terrible sex was last night. I really do better like this and that. And she goes through all of these different scenarios of how he hates her. On the other hand, It shows a bubble up over the man's head and he's thinking about, Oh, I wonder if dogs like wearing shoes on their feet. Do you think that they enjoy that? I wonder if they they walk around thinking, Oh, These shoes are nice. My feet are warm and cozy and things like that. And that's what he's thinking. And he has this look on his face like he's really grim and angry and like really intensely thinking about the subject. And the woman's obviously like, Oh, My God, We're going to break up. And the man's like, Dogs, I wonder if they like shoes. And it's kind of funny when you look at it in a comic is you're like, Ha ha. That's exactly how it happens. But then when you're in the situation and you're sitting with someone and you're kind of projecting their thoughts or projecting your thoughts onto them, Basically, Or you're thinking, Oh, I know exactly what that person's thinking. Do you really do? Even if you have the best intuition on the planet. Yes. Sometimes you can sit there and be like, Yeah, That person's angry with me. Yeah, I know. But how about and this is a very miraculous and crazy thought. But how about asking the person what they're thinking? Yeah. And I do this now, Actually, With my mother, Because my mother has a tendency to go into these depressive funk spirals where she's like, Ah, Everything sucks. And I hate everyone. I can see her going into these depressive spirals. But sometimes I'm just imagining it because I have such a trauma from my childhood where I should constantly go into these spirals and I'm like, Oh, My God, She's in the spiral. I have to be careful. But now I'm an adult. And so I'm like, All right, Let's do it the adult way. And so when I sometimes feel like she's going into the spiral, I'll actually ask her, I'm like, Mom, Are you sad? What's going on? Why are you so grumpy? What's going on? Why do you keep on sighing? And it's funny because all of a sudden it stops her in her own tracks as well. All of a sudden she's like, Oh, Right. Someone actually notices that I'm kind of sighing a lot and she'll kind of stop and think about it. And she'll be like, Oh, Right. No, It's not that I'm depressed. It's just I was thinking about this friend of mine who's going through a really hard time and it made me sad. And so it's not only useful for me because I realize, Oh, It has nothing to do with me because if I was normally looking at it, If I was looking at it from the perspective of how I used to do it before, I'd be like, Oh, My God, My mom hates me. She's thinking about me. She's thinking about how I'm a terrible daughter and I should be doing better and things like that. How does she hate me so much? You know, Things like that. Whereas really, If I just ask her, She's thinking about completely something different. And this kind of gives not only gives me like a sort of like a sigh of relief, Like, All right, Cool. Everything's fine. I can I can stop going into my own spiral of madness. It also makes her think for a second. Ah, I'm not the only person here. There are other people around me who are noticing what I'm doing. I have to be more careful. And it actually kind of stops her. And she becomes cheerful again because it makes her realize that she's going into this kind of funky mood. She's kind of going into this mode where she's like, Oh, My mood is kind of weird and I need to do something about it. It kind of puts her into a conscious mode as well. And it puts me into a conscious mode as well. So instead of both of us being awake, Both of us being asleep and not being aware of what's going on with our moods and putting and projecting moods or situations on the other person, We're both awake all of a sudden. We're both aware. Ah, This is what's going on. All right, Cool. Everything's fine. And so I kind of I think it's a very weird thing. And you're like, Probably, Oh, My God, I couldn't ask. How can I ask my boyfriend if he if he wants to break up with me? That's not what you're going to ask. What you're going to do is you're going to have a conversation about it. What you're going to do is instead of actually sitting here in your head and making such a big deal out of something that's not making a mountain out of a molehill, Is how they say it. And so doing that, You're going to come out of your head and you're going to put the question out into the atmosphere. You're going to put it out into the space. You're going to get out of your head and into your body. You're going to get out of your head and into reality. You're going to get out of your imagination, Which is going a mile a minute into all of these weird scenarios where all of a sudden you're being abducted by aliens, Which is what I do sometimes. And you're kind of coming back, Pulling yourself back and say, OK, What is the reality right now? What am I actually looking at? Is the world completely going to end right now? No. Is my relationship going to end right now in this moment in time? Is he going to break up with me? No. What exactly is going on right now? What exactly is going on? So instead of being in our heads, We actually come back into the reality. And if you are comfortable enough with the person, Ask them. What's going on with you? Why do you keep on sighing when you're with me? Or, You know, What's going on? Your face looks kind of grim. Did I say something wrong? And as soon as you say that, The person will be like, No, Of course not. No, I was thinking about my boss. He said something to me and I just felt like I should have done that better. And no one has thought about you at all. I'm just kind of distracted a little bit. I'm sorry. You know, And this happens to me every single time, Every single time, People, Every single time. I will go into this state where I'm like, Oh, My God, This person hates me. I'll stop myself and I'll say, OK, Ask the question. Are you angry with me or you know what's going on? You seem a little bit upset. Or what's going on? Did I do something wrong or what's going on? Do you hate me? And of course, The answer constantly, 100 percent of the time is no. I was thinking about something completely different. I was thinking about something that was going wrong in my business or in my work or in my in my walk, Whatever it might be. I wasn't thinking about you at all. You weren't even in my radar at the moment in time. And so, No, It's not about you. And as self-centered people, All of us are self-centered. We think we're the center of the universe. That's just the way that ego works. That's just the way human beings are. It's nothing to do with you. It's not a negative thing. We all think that everything is about us. It's not. It's not about you. Right. And so as soon as you realize that and you'll realize that when you ask these questions, Because you realize, Ah, This person has a different life with all these other things going on. It's not just about me. Not everything is about me. All of a sudden you will be able to kind of relax a little bit and you'll be able to realize, OK, Cool, Everything's OK. I don't have to go into all these dangerous. The world is ending. My life is ending. I'm going to sit. I'm going to be on the street soon. Kind of destitute situation. Everything's OK. I was just making up big situation in my head, But it was just me projecting. It was just me pretending like I know what's going on in the world and I have no idea what's going on even with me. Right. And so I really want you hopefully to try this technique and say, OK, Let me ask the question. Let me just put it out there. Let me live in the real world rather than live in my imaginary world that I've created, Because a lot of our imaginary worlds are actually really cruel, Terrible places to live in where there's a lot of really, Really scary things happening. Right. In the real world, It might be completely fine. And all of a sudden you're in your head and everything is just crazy. It's like apocalyptic zombie situation where everything is just completely gone to. I don't know what words to use, But it's just not good. Right. I'm trying not to swear on these videos. So I want you to pull yourself out of that funk, Out of that spiral in your head and ask the question. Are you mad at me? Are you angry with me? What's going on? Why do you look like that? Why did you have that expression on your face? It's so easy to ask these questions and instantaneously everything can be fixed. But instead of asking the question, We make a huge deal out of it in our heads and we keep on going and going and going. And eventually the whole world is ending in our heads. Right. Stop doing that to yourself. Ask the question. OK, I hope this makes sense. Again, Thank you so much for watching and I shall see you the next time around. Bye for now.