Those Uncontrollable Thoughts
In 1976, when Jimmy Carter was a candidate for President of the United States, he did an interview with Playboy Magazine. During this interview, Carter admitted that he “looked on a lot of women with lust” and he added, “I’ve committed adultery in my heart many times.”
Carter never took action on these thoughts; he just admitted that the thoughts crossed his mind.
Some people were shocked to hear Jimmy Carter say these words. How could this religious man have these “impure” thoughts? Of course, there were many others who just smiled or chuckled and realized that every man has these thoughts. (Note: I can’t speak for women, but I’m guessing some of them have lustful thoughts as well.)
Well, did Jimmy Carter have the ability to control his thoughts and not have any of these lustful thoughts?
I don’t believe he had that option. Some thoughts do enter our minds uninvited. They simply pop up. If you were to take a poll of men around the world and ask them, “Have you ever had a lustful thought?” — you know very well what the result would be.
And yet, ask these men if they are consciously CHOOSING in these instances to have the lustful thoughts, and I think the vast majority will tell you that the thoughts just happen. They just appear without asking for permission to enter.
My point is not to concentrate on sexual thoughts. This discussion applies to all subjects. No matter how much we try to deny it, we all have uninvited thoughts. Many of these thoughts are often very troubling and unexplainable.
Take something as simple as a bug or insect that comes into your house or apartment. Personally, there are times when I feel great compassion for the insect and will try to “escort it” out of the house so it can continue to live. At other times, my only thought is to squash the bug and kill it instantly. Why these conflicting thoughts? I haven’t the slightest idea.
Have you ever had a violent thought that shocked you? I believe we all have these thoughts from time to time.
In most cases, we try to resist these thoughts and push them out of our minds. We feel we are “bad” people if we have impure, lustful or violent thoughts. We repress these unwanted thoughts and it causes us emotional turmoil.
It took me more than 50 years to finally admit that some of these thoughts could NOT be controlled – and that it made no sense to try to suppress them or replace them with better thoughts. For me, it comes down to allowing these thoughts to float by, without denying them or resisting them.
These thoughts have no power IF you just let them be. They arise, they go away. Who knows why? You can’t tell when they will come and many of them are absurd, no matter how mentally stable you appear to be.
Fortunately, even though we may have whacky, unusual thoughts from time to time, we don’t feel the need to act on them.
It certainly appears that we have the ability to control many of our thoughts and emotions. Thus, if we have a positive attitude, we will have mostly positive thoughts. If we have a negative attitude, we will have mostly negative thoughts. However, no matter how positive you are, you will have some negative, troubling thoughts. And no matter how negative you are, you will have some positive thoughts and emotions.
Each of us has uncontrolled thoughts that pop up, often out of nowhere. You can attempt to deny this, but I’ve found it is simply an unavoidable part of the human experience.
If fighting unwanted thoughts and emotions works for you, go ahead and fight them. I consider it a losing battle so I stopped battling.
Relax and allow the uncontrollable thoughts to be there. Not an easy task but the only road that will bring you the peace you want.
– Jeff Keller
© 2008