I remember vividly when I was little I asked my mother if it was okay to think bad thoughts but not indulge them and her response was no. From then onward I swore never to think bad thoughts, to control my thoughts, and felt extremely guilty each time bad thoughts crossed my mind.
It carried on till adulthood, little did I know I was doing myself a disservice.
Reasons being:
You can’t control your thoughts
It’s safe to say that certain things, people, environment shape our thoughts, but to conclude or assert that we can control our thoughts despite all odds is getting it all wrong. We can’t control our thoughts for whatever reason. We mostly have to acknowledge them and control our actions, but the former is out of the jurisdiction.
We’re not our thoughts
I used to think if I conceived bad thoughts then I was equally bad, if I conceived jealousy, then I was jealous, if I conceived anything, it was equivalent to acting that way until I delved into multiple online reads that (thankfully) corrected that mindset. Because the truth is, we are not our thoughts. We don’t have to beat ourselves up when we conceive thoughts in our minds as that is uncontrollable. All we can do is to control our actions. That is what matters, that is what characterizes us as good or bad.
Our thoughts can fade
Conceiving notions or thoughts in our minds isn’t set in stone. Our thoughts are fleeting. This is solid proof that we shouldn’t attach our being too staunchly to how we think at any time, and understand that as they come so are they bound to go. This equally hyperbolizes the point above that says we are not our thoughts, otherwise, we would be undefined in nature, since we are all we think.
But we are not. Our personality is concomitant to the kind of spirit we possess — as we are spiritual beings. Not the kind of thoughts that come into our minds, because they are just visitors, they are flimsy.
Understanding how the mind works are effective in ridding all the unnecessary guilts, shame, and feeling downcast by our thoughts. Because we are free to think of anything. The bone of contention is managing what we think so that if it doesn’t align with who we are we deject them character-wise, and if it aligns, we show them in our character.
But it’s notably irrational to assume that we can control what comes into our minds, or that we are our thoughts. On the contrary, we can’t control our thoughts, although certain people or things can influence the quality of our minds. We certainly are not our thoughts since they come and go.
We are only observers of what our minds conceive. Our actions instate our conscious being. And that’s what we are/should be held liable by.
So my mother was wrong on this note.
