Understand that thoughts are thoughts. If they are unreasonable, reason with them, even if you have no reason left. You are the observer of your mind, not its victim.
Interpretation
Thoughts are not reality, and we have the power to challenge and change them.
This quote emphasizes the distinction between our thoughts and ourselves, suggesting that we have the ability to observe our thoughts without being controlled by them. It encourages us to engage with unreasonable thoughts critically, reinforcing the idea that we are not merely victims of our mindset but rather active participants in shaping our perspective.
In practice
In a workshop on mental health, you might use this quote to discuss the importance of recognizing and challenging negative thoughts.
Being a depressive should not imply danger any more than being a man or even a human should. Mental illness isn't a them/us issue; we are all on the scale somewhere. So we must be very careful to resist ignorance and combat the stigma that leads to dangerous silence.
It can be difficult for people to talk about it, because there still is that stigma around mental illness. But I would encourage people to do that, because they'll be surprised once they do 'come out' how many other people have had similar experiences.
We need, ultimately, to be able to view mental health with the same clear-headedness we show when talking about physical health.
You are no less or more of a man or a woman or a human for having depression than you would be for having cancer or cardiovascular disease or a car accident.
You don't have to be a creative maverick to have a troubled mind. You just have to be human. There is no 'us' and 'them.' No one is one hundred per cent healthy, physically or mentally.
Teenagers are in some ways the best readers because their imaginations haven't been narrowed down by boring things like jobs and the realities of money and capitalism.
If you withdraw into yourself, you run the risk of becoming egocentric. And stagnant water becomes putrid.
Well, my book is written-let it go. But if it were only to write over again there wouldn't be so many things left out. They burn in me; and they keep multiplying; but now they can't ever be said. And besides, they would require a library-and a pen warmed up in hell.
I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life.
I have no problem with religion, and I grew up with a strong curiosity about spiritual matters, but my searching took me away from church and community worship to the internal journey. Before my recovery began, I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter.
Hope was an instinct only the reasoning human mind could kill. An animal never knew despair.
It is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it.
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