Last post I posed a question, What are root-level thoughts?
This post is an answer.
Put simply, root thoughts are the way we “see.” Not in the sense of physical sight, but understanding, interpreting, characterizing. Root thoughts are the way we see, understand, or characterize a situation, a person, ourselves, the world, and so on.
For example, a wife may “see” her husband as an irresponsible idiot or a caring man. A parent may “see” his child as capable or incapable. A person might “see” themselves as lovable or unlovable. Or a person might “see” the world as friendly or hostile. When someone says, “Life is hard,” they’re revealing a root-level thought. This is the way they “see” the world.
From these roots grow the branches of emotion and the leaves of behavior. Once we “see” a person or situation in a certain way, our feelings and actions naturally follow, like fruit growing up from the root.
Say a husband comes home late. If the wife sees him as an irresponsible idiot, she feels a certain way (angry) and acts accordingly (yells at him when he gets home). But if she sees him as a caring, responsible man, she feels fear that something bad must have happened, and relief when he gets home. Instead of yelling at him, she hugs him tight. Exact same situation, but two ways of seeing. And from these two ways of seeing, these two separate root-thoughts, come two different sets of feelings and actions, like branches growing up naturally from the root.
The progression from root to fruit is see, feel, act. And the better we understand this progression, the better we can identify our root-level thoughts.