Watching

The depression came, as it always did. I could feel myself slipping into it in a haze of self-created expectations unfulfilled, and when it settled on me I spent a few weeks lost in head-spinning self-judgment. Eventually I remembered what I'd learned about those kinds of thoughts and started trying to be aware when I was having them.

While I was trying to notice the judgmental thoughts I became aware of other streams of thought I was having, the ones that seemed to come up the most often. Replaying past actions, planning future recourse, nothing that was of any benefit to me. I began trying to notice when I was lost in thought about certain subjects, just like I was doing with the judgments. It was hard to do. I'd often spin on a subject for an entire day before I'd catch myself. But I'd always eventually notice, and after I noticed I took a few deep breaths.

Maybe once today.
Three or four times tomorrow.
A dozen times the next day.
Thirty or 40 the following day.

The depression vanished.

The manic period started.

As I slid into the next depression I noticed that I'd been in thought loops, continuous internal dialogues, that had been pleasurable, or at least positive, and that as soon as there was a problem or negative aspect I transferred the same chaotic thought stream from the positive to the negative. One day I was lost in fantasy, and almost the next day I was lost in judgment. I saw for the first time that the manic episode was the same as the depressive episode, a condition where my mind was lost in thoughts that didn't serve me.

Using what I'd previously learned I was able to escape the next depression, and afterward I started trying to be aware of whenever I was lost in thoughts about particular subjects. I can't tell myself not to think about something compelling, the thoughts seem to come up on their own. But if I ask myself to be aware of when I'm thinking about these things I can be brought into the present moment, and out of my head, by the realization I was lost in the thought in question. It feels good to think about exciting opportunities and new love, but I'd seen how my thoughts could build conditions and paradigms that didn't serve me. I started trying to be aware of spinning on any subject, whether it was apparently positive or not.

In the book "The Art of Dreaming" Carlos Castaneda tries to explain how to achieve a lucid dream state and he says the first step is becoming aware, within the dream, that you're dreaming. The method he says he was taught was to try to remember seeing his hands in a dream. By programming himself to remember he was dreaming when he see saw his hands it was possible to take control of the dream state.

It's much the same with thoughts. Trying to realize when my head was spun out was difficult because... my head was spun out. It was in the illusion state, the waking dream state. I could teach myself to recognize the illusion for what it is by looking for elements of the illusion in my thoughts. Each of us can easily name the two or three things we think about most in the course of a day. By noting these subjects we will eventually (sooner than one might expect) start popping out of the illusion with the realization we're thinking about that "thing" again.