# "Mental Grasping"



## RubyTuesday (Aug 3, 2007)

...that's my name for an analytical/obsessive/deep thinking/inner focussed tendency that I have.

My idea is that I am strongly inclined this way and that balancing my self would help me out a lot.

So my goal is to be very aware of this, and to notice when I am doing this. I try to go by the _feeling_ of this. For some reason, noticing the feeling of this "mental grasping" (anxiety could be another name, in fact) just seems easier and more natural to do.

And my goal is to get really good at watching it. I go by Buddhist mindfulness, where Awareness is everything. That by simple awareness of what you do when you do it, you change naturally towards being more balanced.

Only this is a little more targeted, because I'm looking out for a more specific tendency that I have.

It makes sense too. Because over analysing and deep thinking tend to be well ingrained habits and I am also socially anxious -only I figure that such things for me do go together.

So that is my goal; my "New Year's Resolution". 
I'll quit smoking next year


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## JVP (Jun 27, 2007)

I seem to do a similar thing. I don't consider myself to have o.c.d., but I do obsess about... thoughts. It could even be one of these posts. I'll go over and over.. and over something I've posted trying to perceive it from every possible angle, trying to see if I may have unintentionally offended someone, or just basically how _I_ sounded to other people. From reading the Alan Watts book and probably Sartre, I'd say that I'm trying to "grasp myself", or control something that is actually beyond my control. "Letting go" of this tendency is a very hard thing for me to do. Often times when I try to cool it and stop thinking a little bratty voice within me likes to snap: "No, I'm not quitting 'til I've got it all worked out." It's a major pain in the *** to say the least. It seems paradoxical that all you nned to do is cool it and stop thinking, but that little monkey like brain doesn't like to stop. Isn't that an Eastern thing to liken the untrained mind to a... drunken monkey? Something like that. It's funny though... and true. I usually feel most relaxed from physical exercise and getting sunlight. 
Sometimes at night after I've studiously gone over guitar scales in a completely secluded room I feel very relaxed. I've just spent an entire hour basically thinking of one thing, or one set of things. Sometimes I think that it's a form of meditation; something I've always wanted to learn but quit out of doubt, impatience and negativity.

That'd be nice to give up most of this b.s. thinking and grasping. I wouldn't want to give it all up, though. I don't want to be a droning yogi with absolutely no awareness of his self.(if I've got that right) I'm not ready to kill all desire just yet. And I'm not considering quitting smoking either. :evil


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## CoconutHolder (Oct 13, 2007)

I over analyze things all the time too. Mostly social interactions or how I am doing as a mother. Funny thing is I try to be so open minded with everyone else and accepting, yet the hardest obstacle is not being so hard on myself.

Good luck to you.


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## Gerard (Feb 3, 2004)

Good luck Elisa.

Errrr. Try shadow work. Haven't you been listening to me. :wife

Mindfulness and meditation can go so far in elevating neurotic symptoms of the shadow meaning it will not heal it; it will always cope with it. Mindful all situations you want but your shadow is still there. 

I'm trying to write something up with extreme friendly readability and clarity for people on this forum on this unconscious phenomenon and activities to undo it. 

Gerard


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## smiles (Nov 13, 2006)

Hey RubyTuesday, You want to balance "mental grasping" and what? Would the other part be not thinking and being present? You are calling this awareness right? 

I have a lot of subconscious "debris" in my psyche. The thing is that I am hardly aware. I didn't do the analytical/obsessive thinking at all. But I've always gone by feeling and I was very naive before and didn't know what the hell was happening to me... in life, SA etc. But now I am opening up this thinking aspect of me to analyze myself and it really helps me. I feel how I am feeling and ask questions till I get to the belief thats underneath. Some of them point to a particular situation that I face and why I don't feel good. Some tell me what I feel about my self-worth. 
And then its a process of dismantling the old belief and constructing a new one. 

Gerard, thats great that you're trying to write something for the forum. I myself have been contemplating writing an article on how to think positively. People keep hearing "think positive!" but they just can't stick to it.


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## RubyTuesday (Aug 3, 2007)

smiles said:


> Hey RubyTuesday, You want to balance "mental grasping" and what? Would the other part be not thinking and being present? You are calling this awareness right?
> 
> I have a lot of subconscious "debris" in my psyche. The thing is that I am hardly aware. I didn't do the analytical/obsessive thinking at all. But I've always gone by feeling and I was very naive before and didn't know what the hell was happening to me... in life, SA etc. But now I am opening up this thinking aspect of me to analyze myself and it really helps me. I feel how I am feeling and ask questions till I get to the belief thats underneath. Some of them point to a particular situation that I face and why I don't feel good. Some tell me what I feel about my self-worth.
> And then its a process of dismantling the old belief and constructing a new one.
> ...


Hi Smiles, 
What you described sounds similiar to some techniques in "Beginning Mindfulness" by Andrew Weiss. 
A person notices emotions or thoughts rising up in them and then tries to notice the nature of these feelings.

Maybe the difference is that there isn't analysing or thinking, but more an asking questions or observing that lets the answers come up.

I'm not sure about just what works, how, why etc. So far I have been going by what seems to be helpful for me.
So I figure that, in the absence of understanding much, a person can have a good deal of trust in what their own experience tells them -what works for them.


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## RubyTuesday (Aug 3, 2007)

Gerard said:


> Good luck Elisa.
> 
> Errrr. Try shadow work. Haven't you been listening to me. :wife
> 
> ...


....That's a good point. I've read different opinions about it. 
Some are like the one you've presented. Others are that mindful awareness naturally results in a person coming-up with solutions like new thoughts (only I think that the acceptance aspect of mindful awareness makes these new thoughts natural and believeable.)

So, I'm not sure about all of that.

I do know though that my emotions can be very strong, overwhelming and unconscious, and "fast" or reactive. So for me, even just being able to slow them down, put a sense of distance between me and them and be a little more the observer instead of so much the experiencer ....that seems something that I lack a fair bit.

Also, cos mindfulness is perception (like art actually) it seems so different to my usual way of using my mind -which is very analytical in style and kind of like a hyper-active puppy running round chasing different things that catch its attention.

I'll keep your method in mind and look forward to reading about it. For now I kind of have my work cut out for me just in settling my mind and getting more aware of things I do reflexively. I basically want to become more aware of my reactions.


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## RubyTuesday (Aug 3, 2007)

CoconutHolder said:


> I over analyze things all the time too. Mostly social interactions or how I am doing as a mother. Funny thing is I try to be so open minded with everyone else and accepting, yet the hardest obstacle is not being so hard on myself.
> 
> Good luck to you.


It's all so really tricky.... isn't it!

I read in this book that it's so very easy to get stuck doing things that actually can be continuations of what we've always done, and which are just disguised versions of unhelpful thinking.

And I think that this is so true, that it is really difficult to get out of repeating past modes that may create problems.

The little understanding -and yet, the best understanding!- that I have so far about any of this is that if a person had awareness from moment to moment of everything they thought, felt and did ...then they could effectively create changes in their lives. 
But that without a good enough degree of awareness, people will continue with what are habitual or reflexive ways of acting (or 're-acting').

I hope you don't mind me catching you out here. You shouldn't mind, because it's an easy enough thing to do from time to time, and especially on behalf of another person -but is a different thing altogether being able to notice it about yourself.

So, one thing I can notice about what you wrote is that in trying to be open minded with everyone else -yet still things don't seem to work out.

I do this very naturally also and things don't work out for me -not often enough. And if you look at the "Photos of Melbourne" thread I started, you can see me doing this there again.

The thing with a book I read "Buddhismlain and Simple" is that it explains that trying to do anything is pointless. That through mindful awareness, which gives us a new perspective and one that includes "the whole" as opposed to only "the parts" that we currently see, then we can act out of "the whole" and out of "right intention".

"Right intention" is explained as a sort of no intention -or as nature would act, which is natural and not in conflict or "trying" to do anything. It acts out of the whole, and as a result is natural, not forced, and not up against any opposition (including a person's own natural emotions).

And if you look at this observation you've made - You TRY to be open minded with others. 
This is so very similar to my eventual observation of how I was (in my "Photos of Melbourne" thread, _trying_ to be fair, careful to not be arrogant or a 'know it all'. ...all of which can be summed up with: trying not to appear or be egotistical.

The problem though is that in trying not to be egotistical a person is, on a higher level or in a bigger sense, that very way just out of an attempt or striving to not be that way.

Or, being concerned about how I appear to others, including appearing egotistical, is egotistical in it self.

And my hunch/basic understanding is that this is the general pattern in everything.
That we act out of "parts", and out of how we currently see things, but not out of "the whole" or out of the bigger picture of what is really going on. (I figure that this is just because a person is forever approaching being objective about things, from a subjective point: our view is always firstly biased before it becomes more open and sees other sides.

So there can't be any striving towards being open minded, or towards seeing the whole of what's happening.

And I think that it's more than just catching yourself every now and then in the process of _trying_ and of your mind leaning, in the act of "_wrong intention_" . I think that because we're dealing with well ingrained habits that it really requires moment to moment attention.

Anyhow, it's pretty hard. It isn't just a case of noticing this every now and then and it's easier to see when someone other than yourself is doing it, also. A person has to notice themselves moving towards doing it every single time.

I think that being mindful/aware of every thought and feeling a person has at the same time that they are thinking or feeling it, is pretty challenging a skill to develop.

It also can seem pretty tedious when in going about building this skill up, certain negative, reactive patterns of feeling (like social anxiety) are still there. My best way of getting round this difficulty is noticing a more basic general tendency I have towards dwelling on thoughts, going deeply.
I am working on this more specifically, and my hope is that it will reduce my anxiety enough so that everything is easier.


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## Gerard (Feb 3, 2004)

RubyTuesday said:


> I'll keep your method in mind and look forward to reading about it. For now I kind of have my work cut out for me just in settling my mind and getting more aware of things I do reflexively. I basically want to become more aware of my reactions.


Good....great! Meditation and mindfulness does help with that. Journaling too does as well. You are pretty cognitively developed to spot your own tendencies I see in ridiculously in your posts. You know cognitivist Piaget postconventional thinking: "Thinking about thinking" This type of cognition could go beyond infinite if it matures more and more. "Thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking to infinite."


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## RubyTuesday (Aug 3, 2007)

JVP said:


> I seem to do a similar thing. I don't consider myself to have o.c.d., but I do obsess about... thoughts. It could even be one of these posts. I'll go over and over.. and over something I've posted trying to perceive it from every possible angle, trying to see if I may have unintentionally offended someone, or just basically how _I_ sounded to other people. From reading the Alan Watts book and probably Sartre, I'd say that I'm trying to "grasp myself", or control something that is actually beyond my control. "Letting go" of this tendency is a very hard thing for me to do. Often times when I try to cool it and stop thinking a little bratty voice within me likes to snap: "No, I'm not quitting 'til I've got it all worked out." It's a major pain in the @$$ to say the least. It seems paradoxical that all you nned to do is cool it and stop thinking, but that little monkey like brain doesn't like to stop. Isn't that an Eastern thing to liken the untrained mind to a... drunken monkey? Something like that. It's funny though... and true. I usually feel most relaxed from physical exercise and getting sunlight.
> Sometimes at night after I've studiously gone over guitar scales in a completely secluded room I feel very relaxed. I've just spent an entire hour basically thinking of one thing, or one set of things. Sometimes I think that it's a form of meditation; something I've always wanted to learn but quit out of doubt, impatience and negativity.
> 
> That'd be nice to give up most of this b.s. thinking and grasping. I wouldn't want to give it all up, though. I don't want to be a droning yogi with absolutely no awareness of his self.(if I've got that right) I'm not ready to kill all desire just yet. And I'm not considering quitting smoking either. :evil


My God... sounds so much like me!

Even when I read a great book that explained logically why I should ease up on thinking, my habit was still to be unsatisfied with this adequate enough explanation.

I've had to sort of give my self a bit of a kick -and look and see the bigger picture of what I was actually creating for my self out of a craving to know everything inside and out. ....Kind of a disease, and I figure it's intimately linked with anxiety (the fear of the unknown).

As far as 'giving up thinking' ....I read a great explanation in Steve Hagen's book (my favorite Buddhist and spirituality book to date) that stated that the Buddhists don't quit thinking, they just accept that thoughts are not reliable for grasping reality. That the mind is limited like every other sense organ we have.

They use their concepts but don't rely upon them. Instead perception of reality is possible (observing the mind's intention and its preference or inclination). But reality can never actually be put into a concept.

Which is very very similar to your observation that you had been trying to control something that is beyond your control.
...I read Jesus say about the self (and any idea about the self is the same as any idea and thought we have about anything) ... "You can never lose it, and you can never grab hold of it"

-Very similar t the Buddhist's dropping the mind, relying upon perception (of our narrow mindedness, our seeing only one part of the whole always) 
in order to open our mind to new beliefs and understanding.

...Now I've just got to do it!! ....ahhhemm :um :lol heh!


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