Jim’s Secret Thoughts

Recent uproars, scuffles, nasty words and offended bloggers on http://www.blogcatalog.com have prompted me to unleash the contents of this post. No, I’m not intentionally going to offend anyone. but I want to suggest that getting upset is all in the head!

Just think of a situation where someone says something against the beliefs you hold dearly, or against a person you love. What is your reaction? Do you strike out with fists first? Or are you more restrained and let loose with a barrage of nasty insults? Or do you engage the opponent in a dialog tennis match where both strike hard but neither scores? Or do you pass it by and wish the sad soul a good day?

Now back up and examine your thoughts, those thoughts that occurred in your mind immediately after the offending comments and just before your reaction. What were they? What did you think? If you could verbalize those thoughts what would they say? Were these thoughts casting judgment on the other person and their comments? Did these thoughts arise out of a mindset that dictates to your mind what is right and what is wrong, and tells you how to treat those who disagree with you?

Mindsets! Those nasty little collections of ideas and beliefs that cause us so much distress and conflict. Usually the offending mindsets are religious, but not always. The religious mindsets are the most destructive, because they are the least tolerant and most demanding in adherence. I know from my own religious background that even though I believed we were right, and even though our teaching was to love others, we couldn’t but fall into a judgmental attitude when faced with conflicting views, especially those denying the very things we stood for.

Attitudes! That temperamental feeling resulting from our dominant mindsets. Attitudes determine our reactions. We either have a bad attitude and reduce ourselves to finger-pointing and accusations, or we have a good, positive attitude which holds steady in love and acceptance, even in the face of accusation and criticism.

My point is this: all of our feelings, our offendedness, our attitudes are the results of our thoughts, which in turn are the results of our mindsets. In other words, you can choose whether to be offended or not. You have no one to blame for you being offended but yourself. You decide! Of course most of us simply react to the dominant thoughts in our heads. But that’s my point. We choose what thoughts we allow into our head. Either we allow the mindsets we grew up with decide what we think, or we free ourselves from the past paradigms and make a deliberate decision to think and become aware of what we think and why.

Now, what do you think? And why do you think so?

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Tags: paradigms, offend, mindsets, attitiudes, thoughts, free choice, accusation, criticism, judging, religion