Own Your Thoughts OWN YOUR LIFE: A Revealing Guide to Clarify Your Thinking and Transform Your Life

By Teresa S. Neal, PhD

When situations pop up that turn our world upside down, what
do we do? We often become overwhelmed and fall victim to our circumstances. We may
desperately want to take control of our lives, but don’t know how. The good
life seems to float just beyond our reach.

 

What can we do to make our lives better? Is it possible for
us to take control of our lives? After decades of research and teaching, Dr. Neal
has discovered a valuable path to better health and more joy-filled living. And
the route is surprisingly simple. It’s all about thoughts.

 

Own
Your Thoughts, Own Your Life
offers a comprehensive and
compassionate guide for taking control of one’s life through a deeper
inspection of the way we think. Dr. Neal introduces readers to a process of
thought examination through a series of exercises which are easily done at
home, building gradually into a journey of reflection and changing small habits
for a much bigger overall gain.

 

Thinking
about thinking isn’t something we’re prone to do every day. Some people have
never been encouraged to be critical or introspective at all. Whether you are
totally new to the concept or have tried this before, Neal is there with you
every step of the way. I found the narrative to be skilled and confident, with
an upbeat and friendly tone that shies away from clinical terms (although
there’s clearly a lot of solid research and knowledge underpinning every
principle). The exercises feel more like opportunities than hard work, which is
encouraging. I fully intend to incorporate these ideas into my daily life going
forward. Overall, Own Your Thoughts Own Your Life delivers everything it
promises and would make a valuable addition to anyone’s personal library.

~Five Star Review from K.C. Finn for Readers’ Favorite

 

Any generally curious person will
find this book engaging. Dr. Neal inspires readers to continue to think long
after they’ve closed the book. ~Ben
Beese, former student

 

Most books on Mindset are fluff,
mere pop psychology. Dr Neal has written an in-depth book of techniques and
strategies to change your life . . . and alter your way of thinking.

~ Robert G. Allen, 5X NY Times
Bestselling Author

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 20, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636306285

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Robert G. Allen

Identify Your Thoughts—Do You Think about What You Think About?

Thought Exercise: Do you own your thoughts, or merely follow old patterns, routines, and traditions?

Section One: Begin Owning Your Own Thoughts

Chapter 1: Acquire the Right Thought Equipment

Take Control of Your Life by Owning Your Own Thoughts

Thought Exercise 1.1

Chapter 2: Listen to the Thoughts in Your Head

Voices in Our Heads

Thought Exercise 2.1

Making Unconscious Thoughts Conscious Knowledge

Chapter 3: Where Do Thoughts Come From?

Thought Exercise 3.1

Objective vs. Subjective

Thought Exercise 3.2

Conscious, Subconscious, Unconscious, Nonconscious

Thought Exercise 3.3

Section Two: Insightfully Acknowledge the Body of Thought

Chapter 4: What You See Is Not What I See

Differing Perspectives

Thought Exercise 4.1

Perception and Perspective

Cubist Theory of Perspective

Thought Exercise 4.2

Chapter 5: Natural Instinct behind Our Thoughts

Instinct

Allergies

Thought Exercise 5.1

Intuition

Thought Exercise 5.2

Chapter 6: Sensory Perception behind Our Thoughts

Sense Perception and Perspective

Thought Exercise 6.1

Thought Exercise 6.2

Thought Exercise 6.3

Do Your Eyes See?

Sense Perceptions, Thoughts, and Memories

Can We Trust Our Senses?

Thought Exercise 6.4

Should We Trust Our Senses?

Thought Exercise 6.5

Chapter 7: Emotions and Feelings

The Physicality of Emotions

Thought Exercise 7.1

Interconnectedness of Body, Emotion, Feeling, and Thought

Thought Exercise 7.2

Survival as the Basis of Emotion and Feelings

Emotions Impact Decision-Making, Memory, Reason, and Thought

Thought Exercise 7.3

Chapter 8: Patterns in our Thoughts

Routines

Thought Exercise 8.1

Habits

Addictions

Chapter 9: Designing Better Habits

Constructively Acknowledge Habits

Thought Exercise 9.1

Recognize Your Belief

Thought Exercise 9.2

Find the Trigger

Thought Exercise 9.3

Practice the New Activity

Thought Exercise 9.4

Acknowledge the Desired Result

Thought Exercise 9.5

Connect with Others for Support

Thought Exercise 9.6

Be Consistent over Time

Seven Step Process for Changing Habits

Humans as Pattern-Makers

Section Three: Revealing the Mind Through Knowledge, Belief, and Thought

Chapter 10: What Is Knowledge?

Knowledge Is What We Know

Thought Exercise 10.1

Objective and Subjective Knowledge

Relative Knowledge and Critical Pluralism

Finding Balance

Thought Exercise 10.2

Chapter 11: Can We Obtain Certainty?

Thought Exercise 11.1

Do We Know What We Think We Know?

Thought Exercise 11.2

Knowledge vs. Belief

Chapter 12: Untrue Knowledge

Dogmatism, Cynicism, and Healthy Skepticism

Impact of False Knowledge

Rational vs. Rationalizing

Thought Exercise 12.1

Cognitive Dissonance

Thought Exercise 12.2

Chapter 13: Reason to Organize Thoughts

Decision Making

Thought Exercise 13.1

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

Thought Exercise 13.2

Thought Exercise 13.3

Fallacies of Reason

Thought Exercise 13.4

Chapter 14: Language Shapes Thought

The Art of Rhetoric

Thought Exercise 14.1

Language and Thought

Thought Exercise 14.2

Language as an Instinct

Thought Exercise 14.3

The Ambiguity of Language

Value of Language

Chapter 15: Levels of Truth

Knowing That vs. Knowing How

Thought Exercise 15.1

Correspondence Theory

Coherency Theory

Confirmation Bias

Thought Exercise 15.2

Pragmatism

Thought Exercise 15.3

Paradigms

Taking Control

Section Four: Awakening Thought in the Inner Spirit

Chapter 16: The Essence of Spirit

The Nature of Self

Thought Exercise 16.1

What Is Spirit?

Spirituality and Being Religious

Faith

Believing Is Seeing

Thought Exercise 16.2

Chapter 17: Imagination and Creativity

Imagination, Creativity, and Reason

Metaphors Provide Imaginative Rationality

More about Creativity

Thought Exercise 17.1

Chapter 18: Is Personality a Clue to Your Inner Self?

Introvert, Extrovert, or Ambivert

Thought Exercise 18.1

Time Alone

Growth or Fixed Mindset

Thought Exercise 18.2

Varieties of Personality Types

Chapter 19: Finding Your Own Path

Logotherapy and Finding Purpose

Finding Your Purpose

Thought Exercise 19.1

Chapter 20: Living a Joy-Filled Life

Find Peace Within

Thought Exercise 20.1

Attitude and Gratitude

Thought Exercise 20.2

Conclusion

Notes

About the author

cover.jpg

Own Your Thoughts OWN YOUR LIFE

A Revealing Guide to Clarify Your Thinking and Transform Your Life

Teresa S. Neal, PhD

ISBN 978-1-63630-626-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63630-627-8 (Hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-63630-628-5 (Digital)

Copyright © 2021 Teresa S. Neal, PhD

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books, Inc.

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

Dedication

For my beautiful daughter Rianna and her wonderful husband Tom, for my adorable grandson John Michael whose curiosity reminds us of the magic of life, to my much beloved late husband for his caring nature and love of intellectual pursuits, for all my students who have given me the opportunity to share my joy of learning.

Acknowledgements

Publishing a book is a major undertaking. It takes inspiration, motivation, dedication, an unbelievable number of hours, and help from a wide variety of sources. While the recognition generally goes to the author, many people deserve to be acknowledged as well. Thank goodness for acknowledgement pages where authors can share with the world the gratitude they feel for the help they receive along the way.

I cannot even begin to express how grateful I am for my daughter Rianna, for being the incredible person she is with such a beautiful, caring spirit. I am so very thankful for the inspiration, encouragement, support, and honest critical reviews she provided me while writing, editing, publishing, and promoting this book. Having her in my life and helping with my work has brought me joy beyond belief.

My thanks to all the parents of students over the years who told me that they would love to take my class. They were the inspiration for writing this book. And thank you to my dear friend Maggie Arbuckle for prompting me to set up an adult education class to share what I know, which was why I sat down to write this book. At first, I thought I was going to write a curriculum for a class, but it quickly turned into a book. Then, taking on a life of its own, it evolved from a book about knowledge into an exploration of how thoughts impact our lives.

A heartfelt thanks to Lisa Ritchey for recognizing my interests, background, and experience to realize that teaching theory of knowledge classes would be a perfect fit for me. I am thankful for excellent colleagues I have worked with over the years who have expanded my thinking and helped make our TOK curriculum most effective for our students. Thank you to Jennifer Webb, David LaNoble, Greg Davis, Steve Mandelstam, Jim McAvoy, and Jim Fernald all of whom brought great insights and strategies to teaching TOK; to my teaching partners in the Humanities, Monica Sparks and Johanna Carter; and to my math friends, Jim Fernald, James Buck, and Dan Bock, who helped develop lessons and increased my knowledge; to all my family members and friends whose stories appear as examples in this book.

A very special thank you to those who read my original manuscript and gave me confidence to know it was ready for the publisher: Rianna Neal, Ben Beese, Joan McCracken, Jim Fernald, and Litsa and Linden Kirby (to whom I am also thankful for providing spiritual support and being there for me when I needed loving friends). Thanks also to Marcy Moore, my dear writing buddy, for helping me work through the slow days when I struggled to keep going and who cheered me on when I made major break-throughs. Thank you to Tom and Rianna Hill for their critical eye in helping me review the page design.

In terms of marketing and promoting my book, deep gratitude to Robert G. Allen, Nick Coats, and Rianna Neal who shared their secrets of how to find my audience using social media, and to Victoria Moos, my accountabuddy. Thank you to my publishing coordinator Adam Mackey who helped along each step of the way.

In conclusion, I want to share my gratitude for two of my strongest supporters who are no longer with us: my beloved late husband Mike Neal and my multifaceted colleague Jim Fernald. They challenged me, supported me, and introduced me to topics I would not have otherwise considered. And probably most important, I want to thank all my students over the years who have not only allowed me to share my joy of learning but have also taught me so much as well!

Foreword by Robert G. Allen

5X New York Times Bestselling Author

A common directive these days is to Be Mindful. If you want to improve your life, be mindful and improve your mindset.

My life's work has been to speak, teach, and write about how to achieve success. I have found the key to success is your mindset. Map out a success-oriented mindset and you will be on the road to discovering more success in your life.

The value of developing a positive mindset is something Teresa Neal shares with me. I met Teresa in my first idea-to-income course. She asked me to read her book because she knew that I am the chief mindset officer for an international company and bestselling author of success-oriented books. I was intrigued by her emphasis on thought and impressed with her noteworthy writing style.

Fix your thoughts, fix your life. That is the focus of this book.

Most books on Mindset are fluff, mere pop psychology. Dr Neal has written an in-depth book of techniques and strategies to change your life. I guarantee that in this book you'll find plenty of cutting-edge information to alter your way of thinking.

Too often we get sucked into an uncontrollable spiral of negativity that leaves us feeling like victims. However, as Dr. Neal so effectively explains, if we take time to be mindful, we can observe, understand, mend, and hopefully release the negativity while seeking out more of the positives.

Finding positives in our lives will improve our attitude, decrease our stress, and bring better health and more joy into our lives. All of this can occur when you awaken your mind to better understand your thoughts. Simply put, be mindful of your mindset.

This book is a unique and informed approach for developing a positive mindset. Dr. Neal's many years of study, research, teaching, and personal experiences provides a genuine method that brings us to the root of the problem. We learn why our lives tend to spin out of control. It is directly connected to what we think.

It is essential to take time to observe your thoughts and develop a more positive mindset. The thought exercises Neal has developed over the years and shares in this book will help you identify how your thoughts impact your life. They guide you to become mindful of your thoughts and transform your thinking. You learn ways to create more positive outcomes for living a healthier, more joy-filled life.

A happy, successful life comes from gratitude and recognizing positives in your life. If you want to improve where you are headed in life, relationships, health, and wealth, start your journey by understanding your thoughts and improve your mindset. That is why you will want to read Own Your Thoughts, Own Your Life. Dr. Neal guides you through understanding your thoughts and finding better routes for living a more joyful and successful life.

Robert G. Allen

New York Times—Five Time #1 Bestselling Author

Author of The Four Maps of Happy Successful People

Identify Your Thoughts—Do You Think about What You Think About?

Create the grandest vision possible for your life,

because you become what you believe.

—Oprah Winfrey

Would you say that your thinking is in good shape? Are you happy and content with your life and your thoughts? Or do your thoughts scare you so much that you are afraid to face them? Do you have ugly thoughts you wish would go away? To what extent are you consciously aware of your thoughts? Are you wondering how you could improve your thinking for better thought fitness and a happier life?

What does it mean to own your own thoughts anyway? Another way to look at it is to determine if you have thought fitness. Simply put, thought fitness has two parts: (1) being aware of your thoughts and facing them head on and (2) feeling that you are in control of your thoughts by developing a practice of intentional thinking. When you comfortably believe you own your own thoughts, you have begun to achieve thought fitness.

I want to add a WARNING here.

Once students and readers start on this journey with me, they are often disturbed, sometimes angry, occasionally frightened, and generally shocked at what they find when they start facing their own thoughts. Many students have told me my class blows their minds. Almost all students, though, have found true value in the thought exercises and exploration I share in this book. I cannot count how many times I have received notes and comments from students years after taking my class who confessed they struggled during the class but are so thankful they had the opportunity to discover deep insights about thoughts and knowledge. So many have told me it was one of the most valuable classes they have ever taken.

At this point in your life right now, do you think you are thoughtfully fit? Do you own your own thoughts? How often do you stop to think about what you think about? When you can honestly say you practice intentional thinking and feel comfortably in control of the way your body, mind, and spirit are functioning, then you could consider yourself thoughtfully fit.

Let's start by thinking about what you think about. Are you consciously aware of what you think?

Stop and consider this. Have you ever realized a thought you had was not your own? You realized you had been manipulated into thinking a certain way by someone else. Take politics, for example. Where did your political convictions (or lack thereof) come from? Family and cultural background? Race or gender? Fears? Religion? The COVID pandemic and the outbreak of protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement certainly have forced many of us to take a closer look at what we believe. We have had to reconsider patterns in our lives that we may have taken for granted—either good or bad.

Another current topic to think about is food choices. One source tells us that eggs increase cholesterol and may lead to higher risks of a heart attack. Another study says that eggs are good for our eyes and brains—and do not lead to heart attacks. Recently, we see warnings everywhere about how bad excessive sugar is for us. We may feel pressured to avoid sugar, yet we love our snacks and hate giving up the convenience, perhaps the habit, of grabbing a sugary snack for a refreshing boost. Maybe we turn to diet sodas as a hopeful alternative, but then we have to deal with all the warnings that tell us sugar substitutes may lead to cancer.

Health sources recommend we buy fresh produce and prepare our own meals. First, we have to deal with the added time and expense to go to the market frequently to pick up fresh fruits and veggies that last only a few days at best. Then we have to find the time to wash and prepare them and store them properly so they do not mold or shrivel up. Once we start trying to add this into our weekly routine, we learn that we have to watch out for fruits and veggies that have been sprayed with pesticides. Perhaps organic are better, but they cost more, and how do we know they are really any better? With the pandemic, we had to deal with food shortages and learn to take what was available.

That is a lot to worry about—so many thoughts to process. How can we possibly think through the multitude of decisions we need and want to make? The answer is to first become intentionally aware of how our thoughts impact our lives. Then we can determine how to shape our thinking in ways that will give us more control over our own lives.

The thought exercise below is one of many you will find in this book to help reveal how you think. Whether you share your thoughts with others is up to you. The goal is to guide you toward becoming more thoughtfully fit so you are better able to achieve the ultimate goal of good health and more joy-filled living.

Thought Exercise: Do you own your thoughts, or merely follow old patterns, routines, and traditions?

Consider when this applies to you. How often do you intentionally think about where your opinions, beliefs, and convictions come from? Try it now. Think about a strong belief you have and write it down. Maybe it is a food preference or habit, perhaps a political conviction, or possibly a religious ideal. Choose the first strong belief that comes into your mind and jot it down here:

____________________________________________________

____________________________________________________

Now contemplate these questions:

When did you first become aware that you believe the way you do?__________________________________________

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Did someone tell you to believe this? If so, who? When?

________________________________________________

Did you read it somewhere? What was the source?

________________________________________________

Did you grow up with this belief and have always thought this way?_________________________________________

________________________________________________

Have you ever challenged that belief? When? How?

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

Now that you are thinking about it, is this your actual belief or merely something you inherited or accepted without question along the way? Would you consider changing that belief now if you had evidence to suggest you should?

________________________________________________

________________________________________________

When you take the time to focus consciously on the source of a belief and determine whether or not you still want to hold onto it, you have begun to own your own thoughts. You have begun to be thoughtfully fit.

An interesting side note: As I was writing this thought exercise, I took a short break to update my journal and jot down that a win for my day was that I had started writing again. The quote that popped up in my journal was by Stephen Covey, I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. How often do we make decisions unconsciously through habit and circumstance? Our lives would be so much richer if we took time to consciously contemplate our decisions, think about the choices we make, and own up to our thoughts by thinking about them intentionally. Thought fitness begins with intentional thinking.

This book guides you through thought exercises to help you begin thinking about what you think about. By developing intentional thinking, you can learn to take more control of your life. These exercises came together during many years of research and teaching in which I focused on writing, history, literature, humanities, theory of knowledge, and healthy lifestyle coaching. In my classes, I have always put a strong focus on critical thinking skills. I am constantly asking students to make intellectual connections between different sources, time periods, cultures, and ways of thinking. Students learn to find and cite sources of evidence to support their arguments. No matter what the subject, I challenge my students to think about what they know, what they are thinking, and what is the source of their knowledge.

I have not been disappointed in my belief that teaching students to think for themselves helps build their confidence, makes them stronger, and is one of my favorite contributions to making this a better world. I would like to share some of that knowledge and experience with you while you work your way through this guidebook.

Know that you can take more control over your life and your health by insightfully acknowledging your thoughts, your habits, your emotions, and the very act of thinking.

Wouldn't we all like to have better health and more joy in our lives? Owning your own thoughts can help you get there. Recognizing some of your thoughts is not always pleasant. You probably know of times you have been quite hard on yourself or embarrassed by the thoughts you think. It may seem easier to ignore them and pretend not to have them. However, it is important to acknowledge them in order to begin to understand them. When you develop an intentional thinking practice, you can choose which thoughts you wish to live by, which ones you want to change, and which ones you will allow to direct your life. Taking control of your thoughts will always be a work in progress but well worth the effort. Healthy thoughts can help heal our bodies and allow us to live more joy-filled lives.

Section One: Begin Owning Your Own Thoughts

Chapter 1

Acquire the Right Thought Equipment

You don't have to be the victim of your environment.

You can be the architect of it.

—James Clear

How can you put yourself in the driver's seat when it comes to your life? What can you do to make your life better? Is it possible to control what happens to you? Do your thoughts have anything to do with what happens in your life? What difference will it make in your life to become more intentionally aware of your thoughts and know that you own your own thoughts? Would becoming thoughtfully fit allow you to acknowledge, and hopefully achieve, your destiny?

If you want to take more control over your life and your destiny, first and foremost, accept responsibility for how you react to obstacles and turns in the road you have taken. True, the twists and turns and obstacles are usually not placed there by you. You may not have control over events and situations that occur in your life, but you do have control over how you respond to those events and situations. It is often said that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond.

In the classic story of Pollyanna, we meet a young girl who finds herself in what could be a miserable life. Both of her parents pass away by the time she is eleven years old and is sent to live with a spinster aunt who is fairly wealthy but accepts the child only out of a sense of duty. Pollyanna's mother had married a missionary without her family's blessing, and the family had failed to reply to her letters. So when the child arrived at what was to become her new home, Aunt Polly gave her a cold, dutiful welcome. The aunt had not even bothered to meet the girl at the train station but had sent servants instead.

Aunt Polly was a loner who had inherited a lovely old house with lots of spare rooms full of nice carpets and pretty pictures. She expected her servants to keep her house and garden clean, quiet, and well cared for. In Aunt Polly's mind, a child in the house would just be a nuisance who would slam doors and break things, so she decided to assign her little orphaned niece a room in the attic as far away from her as possible.

Right from the beginning, Aunt Polly forbade Pollyanna from speaking about her father. Although the child did not understand the family feud that had occurred long before she was born, she was now denied her one source of comfort: sharing her memories of her father and her vision of him living with the angels. That first afternoon in the attic room, wanting to love and live and care, Pollyanna found herself alone with her thoughts, and she began to cry—something she had avoided doing on the entire trip to her new home.

She cried until she remembered a lesson she had learned from her father. He had created a game for them to play in order to teach her how to take control of her thoughts and begin to feel better. Whenever she was sad, she and her father would acknowledge why they were sad and then find something that would make them glad. Because it was a game, it was easier and more enjoyable for her to practice. And the more she practiced it, the more successful she was at making it work for her.

Like Pollyanna, most of us have found that things happen to us all the time—whether we like it or not. However, Pollyanna teaches us a valuable lesson. We can take more control over our lives when we choose to become more aware of our nonconscious thoughts and then choose to adjust how we think about those situations. This is a process through which owning your own thoughts provides a valuable path for becoming thoughtfully fit.

Take Control of Your Life by Owning Your Own Thoughts

Take Control. First, let's analyze what it means to take control. Taking control requires becoming more intentionally aware of our nonconscious thoughts. So much goes on in the hidden recesses of our minds that control our thoughts, behavior, and decisions—and most of us do not even realize it. We just blame rotten luck or cruel humanity or perhaps some evil force.

The truth is, we can take more control of our lives by becoming intentionally aware of how we think.

A valuable formula promoted by Jack Canfield, author of Success Principles, and shared by others is E + R = O.¹ Events plus Response equals Outcome. You may not have control of the Events that happen in your life, but you do have control of your Responses to those events. The decision of how you Respond will create the Outcome that you take away from that event.

Let's consider another version of this formula as the right equipment we need to improve our thought fitness.

This is the same idea, except S is for Situation. Situation is a broader, more encompassing term that includes not only events but also relationships, obligations, and goals. You can choose to be a miserable victim, you can stumble through life blindly just letting life happen, or you can choose to be motivated to take control of your life and your own thoughts.

Take Control of Your Life. It is Your life, not someone else's. This seems so obvious yet how easily we forget. We let other people make decisions for us—maybe even desire others to make decisions because decision-making is difficult. It causes fatigue. Decision fatigue, a common complaint, leads to avoidance. However, philosophically speaking, "choosing not to choose is a choice." Decision-making is often a difficult responsibility.

And it is not just about decision-making. How do we deal with people who negatively impact our thoughts and our lives? We dislike people for pushing us around. We feel guilty if we do not do the right thing or make the best comment at the right moment. We may become bitter if we sacrifice our sense of self in order to meet the demands of someone else. Even when we do the right thing and make people and ourselves happy, it does not seem to last. We have to work at it all over again.

So how do you make it your life and not be caught up in the pressure of feeling you are controlled by all those around you? The simple (although not easy) answer is to improve your thought fitness by owning your own thoughts. The thought exercises in this book are designed to help guide you to understand and improve your thinking in ways that will allow you to become more thoughtfully fit.

Own Your Own Thoughts. What does that mean? Own your own thoughts. At first glance, that is an error of using the same word in the same sentence so close together. At closer analysis, however, we can see that it is a play on two different usages of the same word, own. The first is a verb referring to the concept of taking ownership, to know it belongs to you. The second own is a possessive adverb indicating who the thoughts belong to—not to him or to her or to them, but to you (which would read, not his thoughts nor her thoughts nor their thoughts, but your thoughts). We could say Own Your Thoughts, but adding that second own into the phrase emphasizes that they are your thoughts, no one else's. You own them.

And what about Thoughts? Why focus on thoughts? Why not belongings or body or even knowledge. The first two, belongings and body, are what we usually connect with the concept of ownership. We do