by epiphany55 » Tue Nov 10, 2015 2:54 pm
You also said that you want to move on. It's clear to you now that moving on doesn't involve being able to stop these thoughts. You won't get back the identity you want. You have to look deeper than identity itself. Moving on has to involve some kind of detachment from this need to hold on to an identity that tells you "I am my past, I am this, I am that".
One book that made me realise this distinction between identity (who I think I am) and simply being, independent of the mind-made story of "me", was the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I recommend you read that book. It's not your typical new age mumbo jumbo - it doesn't make any religious or mystical claims - but it does help you to detach from the story about yourself and the conditioning that makes you believe your thoughts about yourself are synonymous with who you are, which is causing you so much suffering right now.
Everybody wants to cling to their past and a continuous self identity because they've never lived without it. They (falsely) believe that their existence depends on this attachment to a life-long identity - a sense of self (not the authentic self). It seems so natural and it is part of our evolution as a sentient species. But when this story is filled with pain and darkness, the only solution is to seek a deeper reality, beyond what the conditioned mind offers.
So if your mind pops up the thought "I don't deserve to be happy", you might question why that is necessarily correct just because a thought happens to say it and then move your attention elsewhere when you realise it's as empty as a bubble. It's about stepping outside the sphere of thought and observing it rather than immersing yourself within it.
Right now, you are reluctant to question the validity of these thoughts, because your sense of identity and existence over your life has been intrinsically defined by that part of the brain. You know it's causing you pain, but at the same time you are scared to lose it because you will lose your sense of self. But in reality that's just another thought with no basis in reality.
The proof that we can exist without a sense of self rooted in the past is often staring right at us...
There will be times when you're not thinking about the past - you just don't notice it. But that's the point - stop noticing thought so much. To do that you need to mentally train just like you would physically train at the gym to make your body fitter. The brain is like a muscle. The more you focus your attention on things that don't involve your past or the story of the self, the stronger and more dominant those parts of the brain will become.
When I play guitar, play with the kids, debate with friends... anything that focuses the attention of the mind, that, on reflection, is when I am truly free and at peace. When the mind is left to do as it pleases, it will always take you down the "I am this, I am that, what do I think of myself, what do others think of me" path.
When realising this, many people have reported laughing, because they can see the mind's games being played out in front of them. But now they don't play. They don't follow a thought just because it is there.
Without training, without the work, you will not move on. Just as someone who wants a six pack has to train consistently and exercise a good deal of will power, so too must you be willing to spend much of your free time developing those areas of your brain that aren't dependent on your past or the story of the self.
The question is, are you willing to do it? How much does moving on really mean to you?