Not far afield at all. That’s another rabbit hole I’ve gone down pretty deeply, and I’ve found it an incredibly useful set of ideas for thinking (or not thinking) about the world. It cuts through a lot of the stuff we tend to get stuck in our heads about.
On this tangent, I’ve found mindfulness meditation to be one of the most useful tools when navigating the harder feelings. In that mode of observation, you start to notice these things just unfolding in the space of consciousness.
It made a lot of the ideas I’d been introduced to in therapy actually become real experientially, e.g. the idea that I am not my thoughts sounds nice, but while meditating, I begin to experience this as thoughts come and go like waves, and eventually just stop. But I’m still aware. It was the first time I could really feel the difference between “me” and “a thought my brain is thinking right now”. Getting that separation makes dealing with the harder thoughts significantly easier.
On this tangent, I’ve found mindfulness meditation to be one of the most useful tools when navigating the harder feelings. In that mode of observation, you start to notice these things just unfolding in the space of consciousness.
It made a lot of the ideas I’d been introduced to in therapy actually become real experientially, e.g. the idea that I am not my thoughts sounds nice, but while meditating, I begin to experience this as thoughts come and go like waves, and eventually just stop. But I’m still aware. It was the first time I could really feel the difference between “me” and “a thought my brain is thinking right now”. Getting that separation makes dealing with the harder thoughts significantly easier.