1. Is it true?
Oh, it is so annoying. The tv is on ALL day. It drains my energy. It is exhausting. Yes, I want it off!

2. Can you absolutely know that it is true?
If I really did want it off I would have turned it off long ago. So, no, it is not true.

3. How do you react when you think that thought?
My tv disgust and hatred comes out full blown. My shoulders are very tense. I strike out against W., against R., against the whole tv addicted nation.

I see myself as a victim. It is like swimming against the stream. I feel hopeless.

I also doubt that I have the right to ask for the tv to be turned off. I hesitate to ask because I think my preference is so extreme over here. And from there I cycle back to seeing this society as messed up with their watching tv all day, even having tv’s in restaurants (!), doing everything with their cars, eating junk food all the time… STRESS. A LOT of STRESS.

With the thought: Stress, resentment, separation.

4. Who would you be without the thought?
I would be more relaxed. I might go into the bedroom and write there. Or, I might just ask to have the tv turned off. Either answer tells me where to be. Yes, tv off, I am supposed to sit at the kitchen table. No, tv not off, I am supposed to work in the bedroom. Wow, how simple, really simple life gets when I am not attached to an outcome.

Without the thought: clarity and action.

Turnarounds:
I don’t want the tv off.
- Yes, if I really did want the tv off, I would get up and turn it off.
- Yes, because I want something else more: W. happy and not throwing a fit about the tv off.
- Yes, if the tv was off and maybe also his game, I might not get to enjoy my coffee here at the table but feel the need to offer him something else to do. And right now, that is not what I want to do.

I  want the tv on.
- Yes, it is on.
- Because that way I don’t have to deal with one of W.’s fits.
- So I get to hear my stories loud and clear, about tv, about raising children, about addiction, about this nation, about my being a victim. What a concert!

Ah, I love honesty. And I just ask W. to turn off the tv or turn the volume way down and he turned the tv off. Isn’t reality always kinder than our thoughts about it?