What is a “Thought Loop”?
A thought-loop is a set of thoughts that go around and around without an exit point or any form of resolution.

A simple example of this phenomenon would be: “I need more money” – “But I’m already working as hard as I can.” – “But I need more money.” – “But I can’t work any harder.” – “But I need more money.” – and so on, round and round.

In all systems flow, these endless loops need some form of exit point because unless such an exit point exists, there can be no forward movement.

In thought-systems, which may be quite complicated and include many sub loops but still don’t have an exit point and thus keep behavior stuck and the folk who run them awake night after night, the added problem is that these loops run faster and faster with practice, “overheating” certain pathways, unbalancing the energy system and indeed, are damaging to health and happiness.

The favorite way of humans to break out of thought-loops is by adding new material – also known as “learning” – in the hope that this might provide the exit points.

With very complex and personal thought loops, off the shelf advice is usually not sufficient to break out of a loop and also, the longer they have been running, the more entrained they tend to become.

Lastly, people do a lot of these virtually all the time they are awake and so what was needed was a method that would:

a) Allow someone to break out of thought loops fast and as soon as they have come to the conscious attention;
b) To have an intervention that is likewise fast;
c) To actually resolve the problem of the loop – by providing new and different insights but without having to rely on externally acquired added information.

Putting It Behind You
Now, there is a lot of energy theory involved in this pattern; indeed, far more than is necessary to know about in order to successfully use this simple energetic move.

I would briefly say that the system of human thought is an integrative and very important part of an overall system that is designed to learn and change constantly and that the reason for thought loops developing in the first place is a detachment of that thought system from a greater system that is required to complete the process flow which leads to new behavior (and I include new thoughts as new behavior too, as thinking is, indeed, a behavior form in its own right).

So, and to make what is a long story very concise indeed, what we are going to do is to take a thought and literally put it behind ourselves, from the emergence point of the thought into our energy field and taking this thought, sweeping it up and over our head and letting it flow down the back of our heads and down the back.

Try it, and in the beginning, by all means use your hands to make the gesture physically in order to set up this flow from thought to the requisite non-thought systems which are designed to process out of the thought loops.

Think of something that you have thought of umpteen times during your life – I want to loose weight but I can’t is such a thought, as is I should be doing something important but I don’t know what it is, for example.

Now, simply allow that thought to come, then physically take it, sweep it up and over your head, letting it trickle down your back and go where it would go.

Consider how that feels – and what a very nice way to get rid of troublesome thoughts this actually represents.

Objections To Using The Thought Flow System
Here are some questions and answers that usually arise:

Q: When I put a thought behind myself, it seems like its completely gone. Surely that is a bad thing? I must keep on worrying to finally solve the problem?
A: Well you can look at it in many different ways. One is to have some trust in the rest of the (little used) processing systems of your totality and which are actually designed to compute the answers for you that your thought has discovered. Another is that should you get tired of feeling relaxed and having space for once to think about something else, you can go right back to the old thought loops that got you absolutely nowhere for all the times you’ve run them.

Of course, whether or not you wish to make use of this system is entirely up to you in all ways.

Q: Is that the unconscious mind we are passing the problem over to?
A: No, not really. It is an energetic system of the totality we are using in this case. The unknown and highly misunderstood systems that comprise the so-called “unconscious or subconscious” “mind” are a part of the whole deal but that is not where the thoughts are going to in this technique.

Q: Will I get – finally! – some new answers to my old problems?
A: No guarantees. Try it out, find out what happens.

Q: How will I know that the system has started to work as it should? Where do the new answers come from?
A: I don’t wish to prejudice your personal experiences with telling you what it feels like or what happens. I am very highly prejudiced in favour of people having their own experiences and their own learnings in their own way. Suffice to say you will know when it is beginning to work as it should. 🙂

Q: Can you put other things as well “behind you”? Beliefs, memories, emotions?
A: Sure. As usual, just play with it. It is designed for thoughts, mostly, but it would be difficult to differentiate, as well as memories and emotions making up parts of these complex thought loops in which many of us are trapped.

Q: Is there room for all of that “stuff” back there? Are there thoughts you shouldn’t put into that system (in case they turn out toxic or damaging)?
A: It isn’t a store room but a flow system. It can take any kind of thought, any amount, and chances are it is glad to be able to flex its systemic muscles and be of use again. The more you use it, the more useful it becomes.

Q: Is there a meridian tie in with this process?
A: Yes, there is. The corresponding meridian is one of the strange flows known as the governor.

In Conclusion
Thoughts are but a part of an overall system designed to process information and return change states (which include behaviour and thought as well) as a result.

This system has become disconnected and is currently on many occasions in human usage, trapped in a feed-back loop where the same thoughts are presented over and over again when they cannot be resolved with the inherent capabilities of the thought system and get passed back to the starting point essentially unchanged.

The energetic movement of consciously ordering these thoughts into different channels as described breaks out of this loop and begins to engage other computation systems which has the benefits of reduced stress, less strain on the thought systems and better balance in the energy system, as well as allowing different and new results being delivered through different and other channels until they are presented back to the thought systems.

The Thought Flow Process, © Silvia Hartmann, PhD, March 30, 2003