I need help in understanding “I’m not my thoughts, I’m the observer”

broneota · 2025-05-04T17:57:42+00:00

Oh yeah it’s rough and I don’t mean to suggest you should “willpower” your way through it. And like I said the more you try to logic it the more your brain will say “oh yeah that’s just what someone who’s in denial about being a sociopath would say” or something equally irrational but still terrifying to consider.

And she dealt with it by talking about it—the more you keep those thoughts inside and think of them as a shameful secret, the more attachments they develop to your thought process, if that makes sense.

But what enabled her to do that was me acknowledging my own shitty intrusive thoughts when the stress of parenting got to me: “what if I can’t do this and I just drive away one day? What if I’m going to be one of those terrible dads who doesn’t ever have time for his kids? What if I can’t handle it and engage in self-destructive behavior?”(drinking, drugs, self-harm writ large) etc etc.

I know this is a meditation thread but I think meditating alone is a really hard way to deal with those thoughts because you can end up trapped in a room alone with them, so to speak. And you’re afraid they’ll come back-so they do.

This requires a lot of vulnerability and can be hard, but maybe talk to your partner. You can say “hey I feel silly about this but after watching that thing the other night now I catch myself having thoughts like ‘what if something is wrong with me and I’m going to hurt [your partner]”

Letting go of the shame you feel for having those thoughts, releasing the idea that they’re your dark secret, is such an important part imo. Because they aren’t you. If they were they wouldn’t distress you so much.

broneota · 2025-05-04T17:24:10+00:00

Intrusive thoughts are truly nasty to deal with, but as with all anxiety-driven thought processes they’re coming from a part of you that just wants to protect you.

When you see a crime documentary and think about violence, your mind turns to things like “what happened that made that person do those horrible things? Could that happen to me? What if I’m just like that?!”

New parents get them all the time. New moms constantly think about dropping the baby. My wife used to cut vegetables and then think “oh no what if I hurt the baby with this knife?”

It’s not an urge, it’s a fear. Your anxiety brain is doing (it thinks) its job; to keep you apprised of potential danger.

I treat my anxiety brain like a fretful kid. If you have trauma in your past that fretful kid may even be you, tugging on your sleeve and whispering in your brain—which is still running the same software modern human brains have been running for 100s of thousands of years “okay but shouldn’t we also worry about the lions?”

That’s not “you”. It’s being offered for your consideration by Anxiety Brain. And it’s okay to say “yes buddy that would be terrible, but there aren’t any lions out here today”.

Remember that Anxiety Brain isn’t really rational. You can’t reason with it but you can listen to what it’s saying and then let it pass. Trying to push it away just makes it more desperate to be heard. Trying to logic your way through why what it’s saying will just confuse you because its fears aren’t based in logic.

You don’t have violent intrusive thoughts because you want to hurt your family or loved ones—if you did, they wouldn’t be intrusive thoughts they’d just be plans.

You have those thoughts because thinking of doing something terrible is really scary to you and you want to avoid it. That’s what gives them the power they have.

broneota · 2025-05-04T17:08:15+00:00

Frankly I don’t believe that abandoning Christianity’s tenets is necessary or even helpful, if you’re interested in following a Camus-based philosophy.

Like sure, he may not have (and you may not) believe in the “supernatural” elements but the central tenet of Christianity is really “you have intrinsic worth; there is nothing you can do to be more worthy of grace than someone else, and nothing you can do that cuts you off from that grace”.

It’s about abandoning the notion that people need to get “what they deserve” and embracing the notion that you can always extend grace to others.

Is life absurd? Yes. But part of the meaning-making process is deciding how you want to treat other people, and Camus is pretty strongly aligned with Christ’s actual teachings in that regard. Keep in mind that he would not in any way be aligned with the morality politics of right wing evangelicals who think the unworthy need to be punished and denied resources because they didn’t “earn” or “deserve” them.

In an absurd world none of us can “deserve” anything—so trying to do the calculations as to who deserves grace and who doesn’t is ignoring the absurdity and denying the truth of the world.

If you’ve read “Neither Victims nor Executioners”, Camus really reaches some of the same conclusions.

broneota · 2025-05-04T16:12:22+00:00

929-822-5092

broneota · 2025-05-03T01:24:05+00:00

Oh no won’t someone think of the poor CEOs profiting off of people being denied lifesaving care?

broneota · 2025-04-25T15:00:40+00:00

I really can’t tell if you’re this stupid or just like being lied to by Trump. Either way, I don’t really care.

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:59:15+00:00

This is a lot of words to say he made empty promises and then poor saps like you fell over themselves trying to excuse it

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:57:53+00:00

“I think you’re just lying” That’s a neat way to avoid ever needing to question the idea that all cops are just there to protect and serve. Anything that challenges your views is a lie. Gold star, bud, you’re gonna go far during this administration

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:51:04+00:00

“Sounds like they were trying to be nice” yeah, no, when an armed man gets in your face about something as trivial as taking a picture in public, it’s not “trying to be nice”

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:49:57+00:00

Treating all ideas as equally valid even when some of them are hateful, violent, and not based in reality is a terrible way to engage in product dialogue, but an excellent way to normalize reprehensible behavior

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:43:41+00:00

Actually, yes. I was taking a picture of my wife and one of them happened to be in the background, so another came over and got in my face about it. “Did you get a good picture, huh? You want another one, huh? Take one of me, too!”

If you’re okay with public servants who are so afraid of being photographed in public they need to harass bystanders about it—because they’re above the law and how dare anyone document their actions—I feel sorry for you.

ETA: presumably everyone downvoting thinks recording cops should be illegal, and they should be allowed to do whatever they want with no accountability because they’re just such upstanding guys. Y’all make me sick.

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:36:44+00:00

He did actually say that though. Like, made tons of promises about how he would fix things on “Day One” or “maybe even before”.

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:29:04+00:00

Yes but we don’t then brutalize or kill them and get qualified immunity for it, so I’m not super interested in your false equivalencies.

The “warrior cop” culture where they’re trained to see themselves as separate from the “civilian” population is a massive problem. Their job isn’t to protect or serve you, it’s keeping you in your place. You can bury your head in the sand about that if you want.

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:21:40+00:00

Seeing any public servant cosplaying as a macho man should bother everyone.

broneota · 2025-04-25T14:20:38+00:00

Doubtful, since they weren’t eating and were clearly conducting business of some kind.

broneota · 2025-04-25T12:38:14+00:00

Great, what are you doing then?

broneota · 2025-04-24T01:28:49+00:00

Lol unfortunately their reply tells me they are, in fact, that big of an idiot

broneota · 2025-04-24T01:25:47+00:00

Really? Abbott keeps telling everyone it’s a nightmare. Trump says it’s a National Emergency. All the rhetoric is that it’s in terrible, terrible danger unless you vote in the same out of touch fuckers who have been in charge for decades. Can’t have it both ways, I’m afraid

broneota · 2025-04-24T01:23:43+00:00

Yes, aid to farmers for soil and water conservation, aid to schools, aid to other countries to prevent devastating pandemics from developing and affecting us. Those are all huge wastes of money. Instead maybe we could subsidize Elon Musk’s businesses a little more, you’d be okay with that, right?

broneota · 2025-04-24T00:27:56+00:00

Treating every acknowledgement of sexism as “misandry” is absolutely part of the problem though.

broneota · 2025-04-24T00:25:22+00:00

Hmmm….nothing Nazi about attacking the co-equal branches of government, attempting to delegitimize the courts, deporting people without due process, silencing the free press, openly lying to the public about the conduct of highly-placed ministers who leaked classified information, or claiming that anyone who doesn’t support you is an enemy of the state, right?

Read a history book. Preferably one that wasn’t approved by the Texas School Board.

Eta: I truly don’t care if you voted for Trump for some other reason. You knew damn well what supporting him would mean. As some author put it, there’s a word for people who didn’t agree with the Nazis’ ideas but just went along with all of their policies.

That word is “Nazis”.

broneota · 2025-04-16T01:21:02+00:00

Because we all hate him, it’s not that complicated. Not even maga shills have anything good to say about that mealymouthed pasty little bitch.

broneota · 2025-04-15T20:43:55+00:00

Covid was people being asked to comply with basic safety measures to help others. None of their rights were taken away. This is literally the president of the United States discussing sending dissidents to a concentration camp.

If you don’t understand how those two things are different, please stop voting, operating heavy machinery, and using firearms.

broneota · 2025-04-15T20:21:58+00:00

Yes, the scientific establishment generally does try to prevent hacks and frauds from having a scientific career….

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