I just read the following in Cloud and Townsend’s book : Boundaries : When to say YES When to say NO To Take Control of Your Life associated to something I was grappling with in my last post and wanted to share it.
Many people have not taken ownership of their own thinking processes. They are mechanically thinking the thoughts of others without over examining them. They swallow other’s opinions and reasonings, never questioning and “thinking about their thinking.” Certainly we should listen to the thoughts and opinions of others and weigh them, but we should never “give our minds” over to anyone. We are to weigh things for ourselves in the context of relationships, “sharpening” each other as iron, but remaining separate thinkers… We must learn about the world … to become wise stewards.. we are here to use our brain and thoughts.
We must clarify distorted thinking. We all have a tendency to not see things clearly, to think and perceive in distorted ways. (Something Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh calls ‘wrong perceptions’). Probably the easiest distortions to notice are in personal relationships. We rarely see peole as they really are; our perceptions are distorted by past relationships and our own preconceptions of who we think they are, even the people we know best.
Taking ownership of our thinking in relationships requires being active in checking out where we may be wrong . As we assimilate new information, our thinking adapts and grows closer to reality.
Also we need to make sure we are communicating our thoughts to others. Many people think that others should be able to read their minds and know what they want. This leads to frustration…. “who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him?” What a great statement about boundaries! We have our own thoughts, and if we want others to know them, we must tell them.
Emerging From The Dark Night 