We Are Not Our Thoughts

"Blow Your Mind" by kozumel is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

 

Recently a friend of mine told me, "I'm a racist." 

She elaborated that this is because every time she sees people of a certain race, the first word that comes to mind is a racial slur. She also talked about how she has inherent prejudices that she's constantly discovering, and how her upbringing in a racist family (her great grandfather was in the KKK) had roots in her thoughts that she was constantly trying to ferret out. 

A large part of what my friend said has a lot of truth to it. It's important to be aware of how we think about others, and that includes asking ourselves if that includes stereotypes or prejudices about people in a given person's "group", whether that be racial, cultural, socio-economic, or whatever. If we know our family of origin has historically held a grudge or hatred of a certain group, that should absolutely also play into how we scrutinize our reactions to people who belong to it. We should be open to the idea that our view of the world is limited, and be willing to listen to others' experience of it and re-shape our own perceptions of it if necessary. 

But the way she was ascribing a label to herself as a result of her compulsive thoughts really got under my skin. After a lot of thought, I finally figured out that it was because she was giving it to herself based on a group of attributes she was trying to avoid, and that were based on thought patterns that she didn't choose for herself and that she was trying to escape from through no fault of her own. 

I had done the same thing once- feared I belonged to a certain label based on my inclination to certain thoughts rather than on my actions or behavioral patterns. And it had interfered with pretty much every aspect of my life, and had nearly destroyed me. 

One of the primary symptoms of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) is what are referred to as "intrusive thoughts." These are unwanted thoughts about harming the self, other people, or about performing an immoral or embarrassing act. The person doesn't have control of when they come up or what they are: they just do, and the person's compulsions revolve around trying to prevent these thoughts from coming to fruition. 

 In my case, since my OCD tended to revolve around my religion, these included blasphemous thoughts like, "the virgin Mary is a whore" or deviant sexual thoughts about Christ (especially when trying to go to communion). I also struggled with the notion that I was a pedophile, including very specific thoughts about sexual acts. I went to Confession often (which brought no peace because I usually became convinced I had "forgotten" to mention a specific sin on purpose and thus the confession was invalid-- add "committed a mortal sin" to the labels!), and lived in very real terror that I would end up hurting someone. 

There's intense shame associated with experiencing these thoughts. They're nasty and ugly, and for an OCD sufferer, become entwined with their identity. They become completely preoccupied with the idea that they already are what they most fear to become. 

I suffered for years before I was able to fully absorb a simple truth and begin to heal and break free from those patterns: We are not our thoughts. We are what we choose to do with our thoughts. 

In order to break free of the cycle of obsession and compulsion, I had to separate my sense of identity from the occurrence of these thoughts. I had to come to see them as a separate entity; a part that was perceptible to my personality but not a part of it. I had to realize that these thoughts are not who I am, and when I give credence to the idea that I am what they say that I am, that is when they gain control. They're merely something that I choose how I react to, just like any other event or stimuli in my day to day life. 

 Because of that realization (repeated constantly to myself and practiced over and over again), I can now choose to let those thoughts pass over and go on their way (NOT repress them, that just makes them worse) instead of having to disprove or control or otherwise react to them. And I can rest in the knowledge that to let them pass without consciously being rejected by a engaging in a compulsion is not to entertain or indulge them. They really don't have any part in me at all other than a momentary annoyance.

I still experience intrusive thoughts. They're the "root" of my OCD, the part that all the rest of the disorder reacts to. I've gradually come to accept that they'll probably always be a part of my life, though thankfully a less frequent and distressing one. They won't gain control of me again unless I enable them to. 

So when someone defines themselves by the thoughts that they have, and say others perhaps ought to do the same, it really bothers me. Not because I don't think introspection or acknowledging faulty or sinful thinking is a bad thing.  I actually think it's an absolutely necessary one for living a moral life. We need to be able to judge whether a given thought we have is sinful or not in order to understand whether we should accept it as a part of how we understand the world and our actions in it. 

But in my experience, saying that a person is defined by the thoughts they struggle against makes escape from that label impossible. Those labels become "original sins" that you can never escape, because they become self-fulfilling prophecy. 

What matters is what you do with those thoughts when you have them-- whether you entertain them and allow them to control your actions or whether you simply recognize them for what they are and let them pass you by. Thoughts in and of themselves have no say in who we are as people; whether we're good, bad, or indifferent. 

Good thoughts do not make a person good. Plenty of people have good thoughts, even thoughts they entertain, but never actually allow them to influence or change their actions. 

Bad thoughts do not make a person evil unless they entertain them and allow them to dictate how they understand and interact with the people around them.  

Temptation and inclination, concupiscence and our fallen nature, are not the same thing as sin. We are not defined by whatever shape they take in our individual hearts and minds-- what we are is defined only by how we respond to them. 

So if you struggle with racist thoughts, that doesn't make you a racist. What makes a person a racist is if they choose to entertain those thoughts or allow them to define how they view the value of another human being. To say otherwise to deny the agency of the human person and free will.