Unbundling Thought-Bundles

Last week I heard from a client who was carrying around all kinds of negative emotional energy.  She had these thoughts and emotions wired up as really big, powerful and pervasive.  It was all she could see, feel, hear and sense about herself.  She told me that she felt frightened, scared and overwhelmed.

Bless her heart, what a difficult place to find one’s self.  I did a quick meditation to center myself and to bring some light into the dark place where she sat, awaiting my response.  Here’s what came through me:

• Isn’t it great to know that these emotions are not real, they’re only thought-bundles?  Thought-bundles can be altered, destroyed, shifted, evolved, released.
• Thought-bundles are simply emotional and mental energy bound up with a string, like a bundle of kindling.  So smile at your fear; being light and playful dissipates its energy and force.  Then untie the string!

I have often seen clients, students, friends, and frankly, Moi – all seized up with a set of thoughts that felt real, felt true, but were not.  And one set of thoughts often leads to another.  And they’re patterns, right?  The thinking is rarely ‘original.’   You take out your bundle of sticks, look each one over, take in the thought (again).  Presto, you’re hooked, right?

And then there’s the self-fulfilling prophecy stuff.  You go and get yourself all kinds of invested in one of your thought-bundles.  You invest heavily enough in them that they become true.  Your energy spirals around those patterned thoughts, and soon your world looks just like what you’ve been thinking.

Want a concrete example?  Let’s imagine you’ve been fired from a job.  You worked in a political corporate environment, and wound up on the wrong end of an ugly power struggle.  Your boss got let go, and you and two other subordinates were fired as well.

In your head, you know the truth of the situation.  You were an unexpected casualty, not a screw-up.  You didn’t fail; you were cornered and voted off the island.

The dust settles and you begin to look for a job in earnest.  3 months later, you’re still looking.

Your mind begins to reframe the termination experience.  You begin to invest in stories you’re creating in your mind about Why You Got Fired.  And you think those thoughts more and more.  You’ve got yourself a nifty little thought-bundle, dedicated to the ‘get a job’ theme.

And so for some period of time, your challenge to find work is exacerbated by the challenges of your thoughts.  You don’t feel hireable, so you don’t get hired.  You don’t feel qualified, so you find that someone else is hired because they had additional experience.

Your little thought-twigs hang out in this bundle, generating energy and experiences that match your beliefs until one day, you say to yourself, ‘Self!  What are you doing?  Why am I invested in these thoughts, when they’re the opposite of what I want to create?’

Further, you say to yourself, ‘What would happen if I untied the string on this bundle of negative thoughts and emotions and burned these thought-twigs in the furnace of release?’

And so you do.  You gather the thought-twigs, you untie the string, and you expose them to the light of self-awareness.  You let them go.  You de-enroll, you divest and you disengage from using those twigs to scare yourself to death.

Instead, you fill your awareness with truth – you are employable.  You are intelligent, capable, a great salesperson, marketer, customer service manager, mechanic, builder, gymnast, beekeeper.  (you get it, right?  You get to pick your own profession here.  So feel free, pick your ideal job!)

The unbundled thought-sticks are history, kindled in the fire of the authentic self.  Such relief to let go of the thought-bundles.  Such relief to let them burn to ash.

You hold the strings to your thought-bundles.  Tell me what you choose to do with them.

Do you know someone who might benefit from learning to untie thought-bundles?  If you do, please forward this post.  Thank you!

And keep your vital energy flowing…