One thought away from freedom
Its just so freeing knowing that the past is just a bunch of memories kept alive in your experience via thought. The best part is that you are always one thought away from freedom of your past if you dont want to be beholden by it.
All movies eventually end
Its sad that so much suffering takes place because of the stories of the past we hold on to. What we think, we experience. And the good news is if you dont like the movie and you cant even change the channel to get rid of it because all the rest of the family are watching it, the movie will eventually come to an end by itself. And thoughts work in exactly the same way. They always come and go and we dont have to be under their spell if we realize the fact of thought, the fact that we think and have an experience.
Where does your enjoyment really come from?
And even better than this is realizing that your enjoyment experience of that movie is not from the movie itself. That is the illusion we all fall into from time to time. But your enjoyment is in fact, from your thinking about the movie. This one idea transcends the content of our thinking because we are looking to the fact of thought rather than get caught up in the action packed movie content of our thought.
No two experiences are exactly alike
If in truth if your feelings and experience were coming from the movie then everyone watching the same movie would have an identical experience. That, however, is never the case. This is because no two people think exactly the same, not even two twins. They may have similar experiences but never identical because no two minds think exactly alike.
The past is just another movie. The fact of thought
Your past really is just another movie playing in your head. And you dont even need to control those thoughts to try and change and manipulate them because very often it doesnt work and can even make things worse. When, however, you go past the content of thought which is past memories and realize the fact I think and have a feeling/experience from this, what usually happens is you see the past as a self-generated thought illusion and calm down either very quickly or slowly. There are no rules here in regards to the exact recovery that takes place when people wake up to their thought generated illusion. Different people will have different recovery times and experiences from challenging, catastrophic or frustrating thoughts.
Thoughts move continually like clouds
But at the end of the day, it is all just thought and thoughts never last forever as they keep on moving and changing like clouds in the sky. And the freedom you experience from this is truly liberating. It liberates you from the shackles of your own thought generated constructs that you were holding on to so tightly. You didnt think that there could be anything else but what you believed at the time since it looked so real.
Superstitious thinking becomes moot
When people believed the Earth was flat they had all sorts of superstitious thinking at the time. Will I fall off the edge of the Earth and go to Hell? Will I fall off the edge of the Earth and fall into outer space? However, once they discovered that the Earth was indeed round and gravity was holding us down on here so we dont float off the planet, these superstitious questions became moot, they simply became obsolete because thats not how the world works. And the best part is that there was no work or effort to be done, just an understanding of how the world works.
The misunderstanding
So too with the principles behind a clear mind. There is no work to be done once you see that you are living in the feeling of your thinking. Soon as that happens, you are free. The illusion we all fall into is a misunderstanding that we think our agitated feelings are coming from somewhere else other than thought in the present moment. We think its caused by other people or things out there. Then we often experience resentment, hostility and have other relationship problems. However, when we catch ourselves out by asking ourselves where our experience is coming from, we fall out of our precious little Ego that was holding on so tightly to our little limiting beliefs. We realize that stuff happens out there but I still have a choice 100% of the time of how I want to think about it.
Notice where your experience is coming from
So, next time someone says something inappropriate to you or does something you dont like, notice where your experience is coming from. Do you perceive it as it is coming from the person or the thing out there? Alternatively, can you see it as no matter what happens out there I get to experience it 100% of the time based on what I think? This doesnt mean you must control your thinking. Just noticing that your experience is coming 100% from thought in the moment will help take the edge of the situation and youll calm down either very quickly or more easily with time than you ever did before.
When the thought storm settles
Once we recover from our thought storm, were usually more open to insight or a wider view of life to be able to move and act more strategically on the situation. This is because we are now looking at what is rather, than what we think it should or should not be.
Handle the unpleasant situations with more grace and peace of mind
Just noticing where your experience is coming from is enough to psychologically jolt yourself out of the illusion and allow you to fall back into the present. It might be an uncomfortable or unpleasant situation as well; this is okay because not all situations are pleasant. However, when we let go of the illusion of our own excessive commentaries that often point at someone or something to blame, our inner resilience shines through like the sun. It is always behind the clouds and it allows us to handle the down time more gracefully till we get through the storm.