On thought replacement: What works, what doesn’t

Thinking vs. intrusive thoughts

Thinking: conscious action
Randomly-appearing (“intrusive”) thoughts: unconscious action

In manifestation, one is to think (conscious action) like their desired identity thinks. The conscious action of thinking, of course, generates thoughts, and these thoughts are your desired identity’s thoughts. Here is where we are encouraged to interrupt undesired (“negative”) thinking by replacing it with desired (“positive”) thinking. New thinking must replace old thinking.

The more one consciously thinks certain thoughts, the more those are generated subconsciously and present themselves to the conscious mind—this is how one programs their subconscious mind (autopilot) to embody their desired identity automatically, without conscious effort.

Intrusive thoughts are thoughts which reside in the unconscious. They may spontaneously present themselves to the conscious mind, specially when one is under stress (hyperaware of surroundings, including mental surroundings).
In OCD (especially in “Pure O”, which is not really purely obsessive because the compulsions are mental), one interprets certain intrusive thoughts as dangerous. This is the trigger, followed by obsessions, and then compulsions to alleviate the fear. The mind-body, having been taught that certain of the mind’s contents are to be regarded as dangerous, becomes hyperaware of its mental surroundings and purposefully seeks out those certain intrusive thoughts in order to mitigate the danger they pose, even though the last thing one wants is more of these thoughts.

Thinking replacement and thought replacement are NOT the same thing. Thought replacement doesn’t work because we’re dealing with the Everything that resides in the mind, and not even one element of everything can be overridden as it would cease to be everything. Thought elimination doesn’t work either because, again, everything wouldn’t be everything without being, well, everything. Thought replacement and thought elimination are both compulsions, and any other mental or physical compulsion, as we’ve seen, provides only temporary relief and actually makes us more prone to becoming aware of our instilled triggers (perception of danger) to be mitigated by compulsions that quench the asking of the obsessions.

Individuals (especially those with OCD) seek to get rid of certain intrusive thoughts (those thoughts which they have unknowingly conditioned themselves to react to), but we’ve seen why compulsions (including thought replacement and thought elimination) don’t work for getting rid of them in the long term. Despite the intrusive thoughts’ contents being disturbing to varying degrees, what makes allows them to go away is to accept them, not to avoid them—effectively, you are releasing your attachment to them.

The mind’s contents include everything and everything exists as possibility. Peace is embraced when one makes peace with their capacity to experience everything and their ability to experience anything. Accepting an intrusive thought is acknowledging its existence within the existence of everything, and it doesn’t mean it is a possibility that you want to express or are expressing—the content of an intrusive thought is irrelevant to you.

To accept intrusive thoughts doesn’t mean to analyze/dissect them: you just let them exist while going about your day, focusing on what you want for yourself. In the dark room that is Everything, your attention is the flashlight that you point to illuminate (make alive in your world) that which you want to see (whether mentally or physically). When you accept these thoughts, they cease to be illuminated by the concentrated light beam of your attention and are “replaced” (go back to the darkness) with other thoughts as you shift your focus onto other things. It’s paradoxical, but by being okay the presence of Everything, including the unpleasant, in the backstage, you reclaim your freedom of choice to make the pleasant take the spotlight.

Remember: you assign meaning. Intrusive thoughts may be left as that, intrusive thoughts, or they may be greatly scaled in importance by being deemed as something that must be eradicated instead of just being merely irrelevant.

And for those familiar with manifestation: intrusive thoughts don’t have the power to manifest themselves physically unless you choose to manifest them through your conviction-intention. In fact, they don’t even have the power to manifest themselves mentally, in the sense that you choose whether or not they stay around by giving your attention to them or not.

The content of intrusive thoughts is not the same as your belief in the content of intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts only have the power (meaning) that you give to them: you can live the life you want, making that which you do want relevant and that which you don’t want irrelevant.