Dr Craig Goodman Control of You Thoughts

Hello, my name is Dr. Goodman. I'm a clinical psychologist and a brain researcher. I'm here at Hidabroot to talk to you today about the importance of thoughts of our thoughts. What type of thoughts we have. The thoughts that we allow to enter into our minds. Now, why is this so important? Basically, thinking is our way of interacting with the world, of surviving, of of anything that we do involves some sort of cognitive or rational thought. Now, often times we will entertain or uh negative thought will enter into our minds. Even a thought that's not so re- realistic or based on something

within our lives. It could be just an a thought that is an invasive thought that comes out of nowhere. I mean, how why would I have such a thought? Where would this thought come from? Well, from our yetzer hara. Every person has a yetzer hatov, a good inclination, and an evil inclination. You can actually say that we're all about 50% good, 50% bad in terms of the inclination. But, we can be obviously 100% good. And even the bad is good. Now, why do I have a yetzer hara? Because if everything were easy, and everything came to me easily, then I wouldn't have any satisfaction in my life. I

wouldn't enjoy what I'm doing. I wouldn't feel good about myself. So, Hashem created this system where there's positive and negative in the world. And these forces, these opposite forces are always pulling at each other. Um just as we have night and day, plus and minus. Um even batteries have a plus and a minus. The cells in our body are positively and negatively charged. The brain waves in our in our uh the EEG are positive and negative or our EKG, our heart heart uh rhythms, everything is plus minus plus minus. So, this is the balance of the whole world. If we didn't have negative, then

there would cease to be positive. So, really we don't have to be afraid of negative thinking. We just have to accept and know that our negative or our evil inclination is going to try and s- and stop us up. You know, try to trip us up. Try to get in our way. So, it's always our inclination within us knows exactly what our weaknesses are. It knows exactly what points and what things about us we fear or we're worried about or we're stressed about. So, now how do we control these thoughts? First of all, I have to know that once I have a negative thought, I have to recognize that it's negative

and try to divorce it from my thinking. Try to eliminate it. Okay? To uh basically uh render it null and void. Now, how do I do that? I have to first of all be aware of myself. I have to be aware of my thinking. I have to watch the type of things that I think about and what types of thoughts enter my mind. And once those thoughts enter my mind, they're either positive or negative. I mean, obviously, there's some thoughts that are kind of neutral in the middle or par for as they say, but again, we have to be aware of ourselves and what we're thinking, especially in terms of thinking underneath

our thinking. Now, let me explain. We have a conscious We have a consciousness. We have a subconscious and an unconscious. Now, the subconscious we can access these thoughts, these ideas. The unconscious is much more difficult to access and often times we don't have any real direct access. These thoughts and these feelings will just kind of surface on their own when when the time is right. Now, in our consciousness, we're aware of what we're thinking. In our subconscious, these could be thoughts or as we say automatic thoughts, kind of habits of thinking that exist all the time in our

thinking, in the back of our mind, and there it's basically these automatic thoughts are a a chain of rapid thoughts that are constantly flowing, constantly moving through our minds, and they're mostly largely we're completely unaware of them. Now, how can it be that I'm thinking something that I'm unaware of? Well, just for example, most people don't think about the very fact that they're breathing. At any given moment, we have to breathe in order to survive. But I don't think about it or other people don't think about it. It's something that we tend to take for granted. So, why is it

something that we don't think about? It's so important. We can't live without breathing. We need to We every moment. The moment that you stop breathing is the moment that you stop living. But because it's such a constant part of me, because it's something that happens to us all the time, that it's constantly existing, it's constantly happening, we become desensitized to it. We don't pay attention to it. We're not aware of it. So, it's very easy to not give any thought at all to your breathing or any other aspect of your functioning. Just the same, it's very easy to get in the habit of

thinking a certain way and not being aware of certain thoughts that may be maladaptive or negative or hurting you. Now, what why do I need to get rid of these thoughts? These thoughts are provided via or by my evil inclination, my yetzer hara, trying to create tension, trying to create conflict, not making it so easy for me to do what I have to do. My avodas Hashem, my my uh prayers, my uh endeavors that I do in the community or whatnot. The yetzer hara is always trying to get in our way, to put roadblocks. So, what do we have to do? Not entertain these thoughts. Because the minute that I

entertain these thoughts and I allow them to have uh a a place in my thinking, it takes on a certain type of reality. There was some famous artist that once said, Pablo Picasso actually, who said, "Anything you can imagine is real." So, the minute that you start thinking about things, they become real for you. I mean, for example, somebody can have a anxiety attack just simply by thinking of something scary. That literally can create a whole reaction, a physiological and neurological reaction that the heart starts pumping faster, the breathing and everything else, all from this negative

thinking. Now, there's a uh pasuk, there is a verse in in the uh Torah, in uh Genesis in Bereishit, that says, "You shall crush v'at teshufenu akev." That you shall hit them on the road in the head that they won't bite you in the heel. And this is the rough translation. Now, this is talking about the snake in the Garden of Eden. This is referring to when Eve was walking through the Garden of Eden nonchalantly, minding her own business, this snake comes along and starts talking to Eve. And he says to Eve, he says, "Eve, you know, why do you think Hashem does not want you and Adam to eat from

the Tree of Knowledge? You know, I mean, didn't you think about it? Why would he come up with such a thing?" So, the reason is, the snake says, "Because Hashem doesn't want you to be as powerful and all-knowing as he is. And the minute that you eat from the Tree of Knowledge, you'll become like him. So, that's why he told you not to eat from it." Now, what is he doing? He's trying to convince her to do something bad. He's using logic, he's using uh all types of very concrete and very uh feasible concepts and ideas. Now, according to the Midrash, um what does it say that the snake did? The

snake basically says to her, "Hashem told you not to eat or touch the tree." Okay, and what did he do? He pushed Eve and Eve fell and she accidentally touched the tree for a moment, a quick moment. And he says, "You see? You touched it and nothing happened. So, call the homer, you know, in the same light, if you were going to eat from the tree, nothing will happen to you as well." Now, this logic made a lot of sense to Eve and Eve went ahead and ate from the tree of knowledge and I mean, in difference of, you know, 613 mitzvahs, the Torah of mitzvot that we have today, one mitzvah of just not

eating from the tree of knowledge wasn't that bad, you know, just one. And we had it perfect in Gan Eden. We had paradise, we had everything. The angels would literally come down from the heavens and feed Adam and Eve. And eventually, she ate from the tree of knowledge, we all know, and then he did and that was our undoing and we were expelled from the Garden of Eden. But what is this pursuit? What is this verse saying? That you that Eve, the minute that she saw the snake, she should have banged him on the head. She should have killed him or chopped off his head or whatever. Not to start

engaging in a conversation, not to invite the yetzer hara or the satan or the negative thoughts to come into our thinking. The minute that she talked to him and she allowed him or the snake to manipulate and to change and distort her thinking and to convince her to do something that she was told not to do. Basically, what he was doing was he was trying to get her to do what he wanted her to do, to sit. And if at that very Eve was walking through the Garden of Eden and she said, "Get out of here or I'm not talking to you." or even just took a big stick and hit him over the head and he ran

away, everything would be fine. The minute that we start talking to the Satan, to the snake or to the evil inclination, to the thinking, that's when we start to get confused and everything starts to get distorted and not clear. So, the Torah is saying if you don't do it, he's going to bite in the heel the minute you turn around. And have you ever tried to to protect your heel? Literally, you can't reach your heel with your hands or your arms unless you're a really good limber person in terms of stretching, but that's a place that you're most susceptible to get bit by a predator or snake or

whatever as you're walking outside. It's the the most exposed area. And once a snake bites you, you're in trouble. So, we want to avoid that altogether. Now, there's another sentence. There's another um in the same uh uh parashah, in the same uh in Genesis, the sentence says, "Halo im tetiv, se et im lo tetiv, le petah hatat rovetz, ve'elecha teshukato ve'ata timshal bo." What does that mean? It says, "If you do not improve, become yeter tov, tetiv." And the word tov, if you don't try to improve yourself, if you try try to become a better person, the sin or the the potential or the tendency

to fall or to make mistakes or to do things that are unholy is constantly there. The door is always the evil inclination and the yetzer hara are waiting at the door for us at any given time at any given moment. And the minute that they see some weakness, they'll jump in and they'll take their chance. They'll take their moment. So, what is this saying? That if we become stronger and we improve ourselves, then we will successfully conquer the yetzer hara. But if we don't do any effort to improve ourselves, the yetzer hara will successfully be able to conquer us. So, this is constantly

happening. But Rashi says something very, very important and there's a a big hidush here. Im tirze, titkaber alav. If you want, you will overcome. You will get in control of that person or that thing or that negative event or negative thought. If you want, you will succeed in overcoming it. That's what Rashi is saying. It's a very powerful thing. So, what we have to do is the minute that I have a negative thought and I allow that thought to kind of take uh you know, residence in my thinking, it's going to distort my thinking and it's going to put me under stress and it's going to make me

decide or make decisions that are not the best for me. Now, also we can think about this as a example. Let's say an example. Once you let a negative thought into your mind and you let it take root and you let it have its own life and its own validity, that's it. It's suddenly there to stay and it's much more difficult to take that negative thinking out or remove that negative thinking. So, obviously it's much better to do it on the get-go, on the start. Now, let's say for example, there was a announcement on the radio that a very dangerous um ex-convict or a convict escaped from the prison

and he's in your area and the police have said not to open your door to any strangers or people that you don't know. Then suddenly the door rings and somebody somebody knocks on the door, you say who is it? They say it's the neighbor, you open up the door and it's that you know, that convict and he storms into the house. He's a big, strong guy and he starts smashing furniture and hitting people. I mean, just try to get in control of him. Until you're able to get the police and until you're able to get to safety or you're able to get you know, to apprehend this convict, the damage is done.

What that person was supposed to have done is not open the door. To say to that person, "I don't know you. Leave. I'm calling the police." But don't let that destructive force in to your home. Don't let it get in and start making a a mess of everything. So, that's why I have to be vigilant. I have to watch out about my thoughts. Another example could be if if let's say you were um a mashgiach, you were head of the kashrut at a wedding and as all the different food providers or vendors are bringing in their vegetables and and and cakes and so forth and bread, some guys start bringing in

chickens and the mashgiach, the the uh the person who's checking the kashrut, he's standing at the entrance of the kitchen. He's checking every person that they've got a certificate of kosher kashrut. And at the very moment he gets a phone call, he's a little busy, takes his eyes off his work for a minute, and in the meantime some other delivery person comes and brings some more chickens in, but this guy doesn't have any kosher certificate. Now, he's claims that they're kosher, but he doesn't have a way to prove it. But in the meantime, because this this mashgiach was not paying attention,

the the the chefs, the the the cooks that took the chickens out of the boxes and they already started cutting them up and they mixed in with all the other food. Now, go try to figure out what's kosher and what's not. What's permissible and what's not. What has a certificate and what's not. It's all mixed up. So now everything's not kosher. You got to go and announce to the family and the owner of the of the hall of the wedding hall, there's no food this wedding. I mean, that's terrible. That's the worst thing you can think about. So what we want to do is not let these negative thoughts in.

Whatever I do, I need to be aware that I have the tendency or you or we all have the tendency to think negatively sometimes, to have not um positive or or important thoughts that can help us, but the opposite can hurt us and bring us down. They can put us into a a state of fear, worry, or stress. So we have to really do our best to control these thoughts. And when they come, just know, it's my yetzer hara doing the simple job that it's meant to do. To try to keep me on my toes. So, let's pay attention to how we're thinking and try to have a holy thoughts and positive thoughts. And then may we all have a good long life only health and happiness and lots of love. Thank you.