Sometimes we fantasize about ideas that provoke ambivalent feelings in us. Threads of thought that appear almost as if by magic and that in most cases are a somewhat perverse hypothesis – therefore, we do not usually share it – that deep down do not cease to arouse a certain desire in us. The fact of identifying these desires, which on the other hand we condemn ethically, is what produces this flood of conflicting emotions. Thus we identify them as forbidden desires.
However, there is a considerable difference between thinking and doing. If everything that passes through our imagination became reality, we would surely have won the lottery several times. We would have even “murdered” many of the people who have appeared in our lives to trip us up.
When we imagine positive things, such as having money or the other person doing well, we are overcome with pleasant emotions. This does not usually happen when we wish ill to others or when we fantasize about people other than our partner. These thoughts are generally associated with more unpleasant feelings.
My desires make me feel guilty.
On many occasions, what we think embarrasses us, and makes us feel guilty, we want it to disappear and we deceive ourselves by saying that those impulses do not exist. But they are there and avoiding them will not make them disappear.
The more we try to escape this desire, the more it haunts us. It is a paradoxical effect, like what happens to us when we decide not to think about a polar bear and we cannot stop thinking about it. The more we try to avoid it, the stronger the thought becomes.
So that you can see for yourself how sometimes thinking something can make us feel negative emotions, I suggest an experiment. Take a piece of paper and write the name of the person you love and care about the most in this world. Put it away, a little later I will tell you what the next step is.
Fusion of thought and action
Rationally, we know that thinking is something very different from doing. No one would ever think that thinking and wishing strongly would make them win the lottery jackpot. However, the mind does not always work rationally.
Sometimes a fusion of thought and action occurs in which we believe that the more we think about something, the more likely it is to happen. In this way, we can fall into the error of believing that the more we want something or someone, the more likely it is to happen.
Let’s continue with the previous experiment. Take the piece of paper where you had written the name of that special person again. Now, next, write “I hope he/she dies tomorrow.” How does that make you feel?
Am I a bad person for having forbidden desires?
We must start from the basis that the concept of good and bad is something subjective and with very diffuse limits. An object or person will have one quality or another depending on the situation and the point of view from which it is viewed.
No thought or desire makes us good or bad. All people, regardless of who they are, have both aggressive and affective thoughts, and that does not make them good or bad people, it simply makes them what they are: thinking human beings, people with the wonderful ability to imagine.
Remember, as we’ve said, that thinking is not the same as doing. You might dream that you have the car of your dreams but that doesn’t mean that when you wake up the car will still be there. In the same way, you might want to have sex with another person without that meaning that you’re going to have sex .
Where is the limit?
Sometimes guilt can become so intense that it overwhelms us. It can seem like our desires take on a life of their own through our actions and we feel like we are unable to control what we think or what we do.
Lack of control over our desires or intense discomfort are warning signs that put us on notice. An alert that tells us that perhaps we are overwhelmed by not knowing how to handle what is happening to us.
When your desires affect your daily life, cause you deep discomfort, or your actions, motivated by your desires, may promote some type of practice that violates the rights of another person or the environment itself, it will be time to ask for help and try to learn to live more healthily with your desires.
How to deal with our mind
Thoughts are thoughts and should be taken as such. Desires and thoughts have no more power than what you give them. It is not necessary, nor recommended, that you deny or run away from your desires. Simply let them be there, enjoy them when they come, and after a while, they will go away.
“Don’t try to push thoughts away. Give them space, observe them, and let them go.”
-Jon Kanat-Zinn-
The mind is a world full of possibilities, where we can fantasize, desire, play and experiment without necessarily translating into action. Only in the mind are we truly free and only in it do we have the advantage of being the owners of the true object of our desire.