Our minds rely on familiar, comfortable patterns, which limit our ability to respond objectively. It is a mutually perpetuating and reinforcing system that can keep us locked into old ways of thinking and responding. This is the way mental models and thoughts often work. She might even go online and find some compelling statistical data that supports her mental model, and after hours of exhausting thoughts, she will decide not to bother. I shouldn’t even inquire about it, because everyone will just think I am crazy for applying.” If she tries to resist these thoughts, her mind will come up with anecdotal data to support her mental model. They might even interview me, but in the end they are going to give it to a man and make up some excuse. If a woman vice president with this mental model learns that there is a senior vice president position available for which she is eminently qualified, what will her thoughts be? She may tell herself, “Oh, I shouldn’t apply for that job they have already decided to give it to a guy. Some believe that, despite a few exceptions to the rule, a corporate woman can’t ascend past the level of vice president. For example, many women still have a mental model that tells them there is a glass ceiling in corporate America. Because of this, our thoughts tend to reinforce our existing mental models, and vice versa. We know now that thoughts, ideas, memories, and mental models are wired together in our neural net. Just as breathing happens and is constant, thoughts happen, and they are also constant. Have you ever woken up in the morning and said to yourself, “I am not going to think today, I am too tired”? No, of course not. Our thoughts are certainly part of us, they come from us, but we are not our thoughts.
So, if we use our logic, we can conclude that we are not our thoughts. Do you know the content of your thoughts? Do you sometimes say, “Well, that is the most ridiculous thought I’ve ever had”? Do you judge whether a thought is a good thought or a bad thought? The answer, of course, is yes. Here is a hint: if you go back to an earlier blog about the subject-object relationship, the key takeaway was that anything that you can perceive through your senses or that you are aware of is an object of your awareness, and therefore not you. If your answer is yes, then which thought are you? Are you the thought you had when you woke up this morning, or the one you had around 2 p.m.? Or perhaps you are the final thought you have before you go to bed each night.
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