By Cathy Eck

Soothing is a Sneaky False Self Trap

Recently I was reminded of one of the best false self tricks to keep us stuck in the illusion:  soothing ourselves.  We sooth ourselves when we’re thinking something false (a belief) and we believe that what we’re thinking is actually true.  We don’t want to think it, it feels terrible, and yet, we don’t think we can let it go.  So we think a nice soothing thought.  For many people, this is a drug.  It’s very subtle; and you don’t see what you’re really doing unless you look under the positive, soothing rug.

Lots of parents and teachers do this with children.  They don’t realize that they’re creating a mental pattern that the child will continue through life.  Instead of soothing children, teach them to let go.  Teach them to discriminate and to not accept beliefs into their minds.  Freedom is a better gift than soothing.

An Example:

The love of your life (or so you thought) just left you.  All kinds of thoughts are racing through your mind, and all of them feel bad.  But you’re not trained to let go. (In fact, most of us have never even gotten a hint that we could let thoughts go.  We think we have to endure them.)  These painful thoughts are really getting to you, and emotions are running high.  That’s because when you think something false, you get an emotional response — another thing no one told you.  The emotional response is telling you that the thoughts you’re thinking are false, but you’re on automatic.  You’re accepting all the thoughts as true.  So eventually, when you can’t take anymore, you calm yourself with a soothing thought like:  When one door closes, another opens.

If you pay attention to what happened when you spoke the soothing thought, you can gain real insight into the inner workings of your mind.  When you think the soothing thought, your emotions stop.  That’s because this thought is positive.

Our True Self is naturally positive so this thought sounds like the True Self and doesn’t generate emotions.  Most people accept the thought and calm down.  You’ve stopped the train wreck of thoughts that you were riding.  But those beliefs and thoughts that you were wallowing in are still there, hiding below the surface; and they’ll be back when the soothing wears off.  Then you’ll be soothing again.  Soothing, like a drug, is only a temporary fix.

How Do You Let Go?

You don’t wallow in your thinking; you witness your thinking.  That’s a huge difference.  When we wallow in our thinking, we’re automatically accepting every false thought as true.  Depressed people tend to be wallowers.  If instead you witness or observe your thinking, you can actively discriminate.  The True Self is the observer.

The first thought arises.  “I’ll never have love again.”  You notice that thought doesn’t feel good; so it isn’t true.  If there’s a lot of emotion, you just witness it while reminding yourself that the emotion is telling you the thought is false.  You notice that the emotion and the thought leave, but another thought arises:  “S/he never really loved me.”  Again, you notice that the thought feels bad so it isn’t true.  Your mind is just dishing up all the beliefs that it has accepted from others — friends, family, movies, books, teachers.  Their beliefs are arising in your mind.  The thoughts feel bad because they are false.

It’s sad, but most of what people think is false.  People rarely have a true thought.  In fact, these probably were the beliefs that caused your lover to run for the hills.

You’ve got a great opportunity to do some serious house cleaning.  And if you really want a perfect relationship in the future, you can have it if you do your deep cleaning.  Hoarding beliefs creates all our problems.

Some Other Popular Soothing Thoughts:

It’s always darkest just before dawn.

God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.

That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.

Look for the silver lining.

New Age terms : Reframe or Cancel, Cancel.

Count your blessings in the face of adversity.

Something better is coming along.

It’s all good.

They did the best they could.

These are the ones that people gave me when I recently asked for suggestions.  Add any you know to the list by writing them in a comment below.

Soothing Calms Emotions

Most people won’t let go because letting go requires feeling emotions.  People are so damn scared to feel their emotions that they would rather have a shitty life than face them.  Drugs, food, entertainment, alcohol, smoking — addictions exists because they’re soothing — at least in the beginning.

We’re trained to hate the feminine; and whether we’re man or woman, our feminine aspect is emotional when we’re in our false self.  The only real way to become completely calm is to let go of the false self belief-by-belief.  The True Self is as calm as still waters because emotions only occur when we let the false self do the thinking.

The original meaning of facing our fear is what I’ve described above.  Later people changed it to mean leaping over fear with a single bound.  That way they didn’t have to let go to achieve goals.  When you learn to face emotions head on, realize they’re exposing the causal belief, and recognize that the causal belief is false, you’re on the fast track to freedom.  But it does take practice and persistence.

The key is to realize that soothing is another false self trick.  If you want freedom, you have to stop believing the false self.  It’s very crafty; and it has endless survival tricks up its sleeve.  Life begins when the false self starts losing power; that’s our second birth.  But to undo the false self, you have to get rid of the causal beliefs, not just cover them up with soothing, cool ice cream.

Here’s a related post on positive thinking.