(2) How To Deal With Unwanted Thoughts

How To Deal With Unwanted Thoughts – The Matchbox Value Technique:

Our mind has a weakness for thoughts; it cannot do without them; it feeds and thrives on them. In fact, thoughts are what the mind is made of. One thought fills you with a wave of happiness and enthusiasm. Another thought clouds the mind with confusion and disappointment and turns what could as well be a joyous occasion into misery.

Now it is up to you to decide, which thoughts you would like to harbour and which thoughts you would like to discard. The more we entertain negative thoughts, the more we feel awful. If we wish to be happy, we just need to think happy thoughts. But you may wonder how? Here’s a simple technique that will help us to guide our thinking process, that can help us get out of the negative thinking pattern. The technique is called the matchbox value technique.

There are so many incidents happening throughout the day. But have you wondered whether you give the right value to these incidents. For example, if someone were to taunt at you or any other such incident were to take place, how much value would you give to that incident. Here ‘value’ means, how much time would you spend lamenting over the incident? And is it really worth spending that much time on those incidents.

Here’s a small analogy that will help us understand what we mean by matchbox value.

Imagine that you have gone to a shop to buy a matchbox. The shopkeeper is selling a matchbox for twenty rupees. The neighbouring shopkeeper is selling the matchbox for fifteen rupees. Which one will you buy? The one costing twenty rupees, or the one costing fifteen rupees. Of course the latter. You wouldn’t pay more than the actual value for a small matchbox is. You would want to pay exactly what it is worth. Not a penny more.

Similarly, you need to ask yourself how much value are you going to give to a particular past incident. “For how long am I going to ponder or fret about it?” First, decide the worth of that incident. One day, two days, one week, a year, ten years? How many days’ worth of value are you going to give to that event? When you decide its value, give it only that much value. Do not give the event even slightly more value than what it is actually worth. If you decide that the worth of a particular incident is two days of sorrow, allow yourself to remain sad for two days. You may lament over it for two days by all means. But after two days, do not spend even a single moment over it. If your sorrow ends in one and a half days, it is well and good, but do not exceed the maximum limit of two days.

For the self-talk (the constant chatter of thoughts that goes on within) that goes on within us about the particular incident or the concerned people, we need to ask ourselves how long it should continue. How long will we let the negative self-talk carry on within us? How long do we choose tore main sulking?

Basically, we need to understand that everyone can make mistakes. Even the smartest people make mistakes. When mistakes happen, negative self-talk begins within us. We then start cursing either ourselves or others. This disturbs our mental balance. Hence if there is any past event that is always troubling you, ask yourself, “How much is this incident worth?”

We must pay nothing more than the matchbox value, what the incident is worth. It helps to remember the word ‘matchbox value’. In every incident, we can then question ourselves, “What is its matchbox value of this incident?” Give exactly that much value and move on.

When we consciously ask ourselves the right questions when we are in testing situations, it breaks us out of our mechanical and impulsive thinking pattern and raises our awareness. This helps in shaking off the negative undertone that builds up otherwise.

By deciding the matchbox value, you will pull away from the past and future and be centred in the present. You will begin to go closer to what you have decided to achieve for that particular day and eventually your aim. Otherwise, people usually keep vacillating between the self-talk of the past and the future. To snap out of such situations we can use the ‘matchbox value’ technique.

~ Based on the teachings of Sirshree

Read Article no 1 – How To Deal With Unwanted Thoughts – Series (1)
Read Article no 3 – How To Deal With Unwanted Thoughts – Series (3)
Read Article no 4 – How To Deal With Unwanted Thoughts – Series (4)
Read Article no 5 – How To Deal With Unwanted Thoughts – Series (5)