How much does a thought weigh? Just stop and think about that for a moment… how much does a thought weigh?
Some of you will say they weigh nothing, some will say they weigh a ton, some will say well that depends…..
It’s a question about which we could get all technical and there are a few posts around the internet that do get technical with physics arguments about how much a thought might weigh. However, I’m not interested in the technical argument dissecting whether the electrical activity in your brain that causes thoughts has any mass, whether there is a weight attached to them as they are stored in your brain, but I am more in the question of what a thought “feels” like it weighs.
I’ve talked before about sitting with sadness and what that means to me. It is the practice of sitting that has lead to the thinking about the weight of a thought.
Crushing…..
Sitting with sadness is an act of meditation and self-compassion (meditation is something that many of us really should do more often as the evidence about it’s positive impacts continues to grow, certainly something that I should do more often).
What interests me is how a thought that arises during this meditation can simultaneously create two opposite but equally powerful sensations, both sensations that feel like they have weight.
When my sitting is around the circumstances with Samuel I regularly have a very intense experience.
Sometimes during a period of sitting I experience a profound feeling of emptiness but heaviness at the same time. It is a simultaneous feeling like the weight of the universe is pressing down upon me, giving me the feeling that it could crush me and a pulling feeling like being pulled into myself almost to the point of an implosion. It is not a physical sensation of weight but it is a powerful sensation.
Yet uplifting….
Almost at the very same time I can experience an equally powerful feeling of lightness, a feeling of expanding as if the weight of the universe is being lifted off me and it creates a very strong sensation of almost floating.
Sometimes it is almost a pendulum like experience between these two sensations, moving back and forth between them. Sometimes it is a linear experience, heading towards and implosion and then feeling an incredible sense of lightness and expansion. Other times these sensations literally feel like they are happening at the same time.
Always relieving..
It doesn’t seem to matter what the overall individual experience is for any given period of sitting… but the sitting always provides a sense of relief.
What about you?
Do you have the sensation that your thoughts have weight, what does it feel like? Does it occur during meditation or periods of contemplation… I’d love to know whether you have similar experiences if you meditate… share them in the comments (or in the comments on FB, or send me a tweet @themickmorris about it)