A Mental Prison - Escape through thought

In this newsletter:
- My audience
- Albert Camus - Lermontov
- Thoughts can destroy us
- A mental prison
- Thoughts determine happiness
- Taking a break from writing
- Bali research trip

People ask me who is my audience, who am I writing for. Some guys think I’m writing about them, or me, or my deceased brother, or those addicted, or my kids, and so on.

The reality is I'm writing about all of us.

When I think about my audience of readers, I’m reminded of this quote that Albert Camus (1913-1960) shared in the beginning of The Fall:

“Some were dreadfully insulted, and quite seriously, to have held up as a model such an immoral character as A Hero of Our Time; others shrewdly noticed that the author had portrayed himself and his acquaintances….A Hero of Our Time, gentlemen, is in fact a portrait, but not of an individual; it is the aggregate of the vices of our whole generation in their fullest expression.”
- Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) 

From the back cover of The Fall:
“The Fall is a novel of the conscience of modern man in the face of evil. In a seedy bar in Amsterdam, Clamence, an expatriate Frenchman, indulges in a calculated confession. He recalls his past life as a respected Parisian lawyer, a champion of noble causes, and, privately, a libertine – yet one apparently immune to judgment. As his narrative unfolds, ambiguities amass; every triumph reveals a failure, every motive a hidden treachery. The irony of his recital anticipates his downfall – and implicates us all.”

Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957. He was killed in a car accident in 1960 at the age of 46.

When I first started writing, it was for me. I was trying to understand the main pillars of my own well-being. See 9 Pillars of Well-Being. This is something I will be developing and expanding further. 

Beginning this week, I'll be taking time off from my weekly writing practice to focus on talking to more guys, more like formal research. I'll also be traveling over the summer, talking to guys abroad as well.

One of the topics that seems to regularly come up when I talk to guys is how we manage our thoughts.

Thoughts can destroy us

I've come to the realization that our thoughts, what we choose to spend time thinking about, are crucial for well-being. Hence, Pillar 6 (of 9): Managing Thoughts and Emotions.

It's so easy to be sucked into our negative thoughts. So much sickness comes from negative thinking.

We manifest what we think about. Our thoughts create emotions that then become vibrations. The vibrations don't go away. They are in us and sent out to the universe where manifestation happens. 

Being alone with our thoughts can be a frightening place. Some guys are terrified of being alone. I know this well because I was there once.

I think we need to be comfortable being alone before anyone will be comfortable being alone with us.

Multitasking also comes to mind as I think about thoughts. I know guys who are spread too thin, involved in multiple businesses, multiple relationships, multiple social media platforms, multiple bullshit, etc. I also know this one well. 

Just sitting alone with our thoughts, focusing on only one thing, radically improves our well-being.

A Mental Prison

What we decide to think about reminds me of some things John O’Donohue says in his book, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong. 

"A mental prison can be as bad as a physical prison. When you are trapped in a mental prison, the crippling idea or feeling robs you of all joy and freedom. You can see and feel little else. Your mind becomes a small room without light. You turn the wild mystery of your own mind into a shabby, negative little room; the windows are blocked, and there is no door. The mental prison is devastatingly lonely. It is a sorrowful place, because ultimately it is you who locks yourself up within a demented idea or feeling.
It is a helpless place to be trapped; all outside life lessens. There is a distance between you and everything else. It is difficult for anyone to reach you. You come to believe that the shape of the prison is the shape of reality. It is so difficult to leave the mental prison precisely because you cannot see beyond your pain. In other words, you are completely blind to the fact that it is you who construct it and decide to stay locked in there; this punishment is mainly self-punishment. Inevitably, you tend to blame others and hold them responsible for whatever hurt put you away. It is only when you become aware of your own longing to be free that you realize how you let what happened to you take away your power and freedom. You were so hurt that you were no longer able to distinguish your life from the hurt. It took you over completely. You acted in complicity with the hurt and turned against yourself."

We have the capacity to control our thoughts, to escape the Mental Prison. 

Thoughts determine happiness 

Our thoughts create our future. And where we are now is a result of the thoughts we have held in the past.

See Thoughts determine happiness where I talk about Positive Circle of thoughts and Negative Circle of thoughts.

In that newsletter, I share quotes from these books:

- Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (2008) by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
- As a Man Thinketh (1903) by James Allen
- The Secret (2006) by Rhonda Byrne

Here are some quotes from Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience:

-"Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy."

- Happiness is achieved with "control over the contents of our consciousness...through control over one's inner life."

- "The simple truth - that the control of consciousness determines the quality of life - has been known for a long time; in fact, for as long as human records exist."

- "The yogi disciplines in India, the Taoist approach to life developed in China, and the Zen varieties of Buddhism all seek to free consciousness from the deterministic influences of outside forces - be they biological or social in nature."

- "Keeping order in the mind from within is very difficult....the mind is unable to prevent negative thoughts from elbowing their way to center stage....unless one learns to control consciousness."

Conclusion

I am blessed by the positive feedback I receive from my readers. They tell me my Sunday morning emails are valuable to them. I feel I’m making a difference.

I am also blessed to be part of a men's group I recently joined. The group is instrumental with assisting me in helping a group of people cope with an extreme addiction situation. See this newsletter where I discuss Men need other men.

I am by no means an expert in addiction. But I am an expert in observing addiction. It's everywhere.

I didn't expect my writing would move me in this direction but here I am. 

I believe that we can hope, pray, go to therapy, go to church, take meds, and do other things but ultimately well-being is achieved through the effort we make, as individuals, to get there.

When we learn to control our thoughts, to spend more time focusing on the Positive Circle, well-being is easier to find.

Again, I'll be taking a break from publishing my weekly newsletter so I can focus on research, talking to men, travel and writing. I'll be back in touch in a couple months. 

Thank you for reading!

Be well,

Peter Pavlina

One of my research destinations this summer is Bali