Stillness 7-1

change your thinking like you change your clothes.

Imagine how you would feel if you could put away an old entrenched belief, worry, or obsession in the same way you can put away an old raincoat that no longer fits. You can! Your mental chatter is not your essential nature—thoughts often are simply something you put on and then forget to remove. They can become like sticky, heavy barnacles on your soul, just as clothing that you never take off. Why wear something too hot, too small, or too ‘no-longer-you’? To change your clothes, all you have to decide to take them off and find something else to wear. Same with your nonstop mental chatter. Sometimes it takes a bit longer and requires practice or a sort of ‘trick.’ Gurdjieff used to adjure his students to learn the practice of ‘stop!’ Try jarring your thought to a sharp stop in its tracks, and try on a different one. As with all practices, do this gently and gratefully, the way you’d give away a sweater you loved, but you no longer need or want.