Killing The Cockroaches: A Practical Guide To Thought Hygiene

Leadership conversations are full of energy language.

“I don’t have the energy right now.”
“The team’s energy is low.”
“This project energises me.”

We feel that energy matters, but we rarely talk about it in a way that is both grounded and usable.

What if you could:

• Measure your energetic state simply
• Understand what drains it
• And systematically remove the biggest leaks

All without needing a new life, just a new relationship with your thoughts.

The five H’s: a simple energy dashboard

In some wisdom traditions, your level of energy or even “enlightenment” can be seen in five very down-to-earth indicators:

1. Health
   Your physical vitality and resilience.
2. Happiness
   Your day-to-day sense of joy and emotional well-being.
3. Hope
   Your felt orientation towards the future. Do you sense possibility, or only doom?
4. Harmony
   The level of conflict vs ease in your inner world and relationships.
5. Humor
   Your ability to see the absurdity in life and not take yourself too seriously.

Taken together, these five H’s give a quick readout on your energetic state.

• If Health, Happiness, Hope, Harmony and Humor are generally high, your energy is probably strong.
• If several are consistently low, it is a sign that energy is being drained somewhere.

This is not a clinical tool. It is a practical starting point.

Slow thoughts, fast thoughts

Not all thoughts are created equal.

Some are slow:

• “I am not good enough.”
• “I always fail at this.”
• “I am too weak / too old / too late.”
• “They will never take me seriously.”

These thoughts feel heavy. They move slowly, drag you down, and reduce your willingness to act.

Others are fast:

• “I can learn this.”
• “I have handled difficult things before.”
• “I do not have to know everything to take the next step.”

They feel lighter, more flexible, more open.

Instead of labelling thoughts “positive” or “negative,” you can ask a more useful question:

“What does this thought do to my energy?”

If it slows you down, compresses your options and darkens your five H’s, it is functionally a slow thought. If it opens, supports and uplifts, it is a fast one.

The goal is not to deny slow thoughts. It is to stop feeding them.

To do that, you first have to understand what they are.

Thoughts as beings – and why that matters

Imagine for a moment that every thought is not just a sentence in your head, but a being.

• You are a consciousness field with a body.
• Thoughts are consciousness fields without bodies.

A thought like “I am worthless” does not belong exclusively to you. It is more like a parasite that can attach to any available host:

• Today it sits on you.
• Tomorrow it may sit on someone else.

Seen this way:

• You are the field.
• The thought is a visitor.

This shift matters, because it moves you from:

• “This is who I am”
  to
• “This is something currently feeding on my field.”

And some of these beings are better described as cockroaches.

Meet your Cockroaches

Energy-draining thoughts behave exactly like cockroaches:

• They like dark corners.
• They prefer to stay unseen.
• They feed off whatever they can find.
• If you ignore them, they multiply.

Typical “cockroach thoughts” include:

• “I am not good enough.”
• “I will never change.”
• “I am an impostor.”
• “I am too much / not enough.”
• “I am fundamentally broken.”

These are not harmless self-doubts. They are entities that feed on your energy.

Every time you believe them, you pour more fuel into them:

• You feel smaller.
• You act less.
• Your Health, Happiness, Hope, Harmony and Humor decline.

Thought hygiene in this framing is no longer a soft suggestion. It becomes Pest Control.

Why cockroaches love high-energy rooms

There is a reason many of your fiercest cockroaches show up in high-energy situations.

One of the deepest sources of life energy is sexual energy.

If life energy and sexual energy are two names for the same underlying force, then:

• Any context charged with sexual or creative energy is extremely attractive to cockroaches.
• They know there is a lot to eat there.

This is why, in deliberate practice, it can be powerful to:

• Enter high-energy states (for example, sexuality) with full awareness.
• Watch closely which thoughts arise there: performance fears, body shame, questions about worthiness.
• Name these thoughts clearly as Cockroaches.

You could try to hunt them only in “safe” contexts, but you will catch more – and faster – by going where they are most likely to appear.

Recognition first, then expulsion

Many modern teachings emphasise acceptance:

• “Accept your thoughts.”
• “Don’t fight them, let them be.”

There is wisdom in that. But acceptance is a step, not the whole process:

1. See and accept.
• Notice: “There is a thought-being here telling me I am not enough.”
• Acknowledge: “This exists. It has been feeding on me.”
2. Name it.
• “This is the ‘I am not good enough’ cockroach.”
• The more precisely you can name it, the more directly you can address it.
3. Expel it.
   With full clarity and even humor:
• “You are not welcome in my field anymore.”
• “Ciao Amigo, out.”
• “You come here, you eat, you lie. Not happening.”

You are not fighting reality. You are:

• Protecting your energy pantry.
• Exercising sovereignty over which beings get to feed on it.

At the level of absolute unity, this might sound unnecessary. At the level of you, in your body, in your leadership role, it is essential.

Identity: the danger of “I am …”

The most dangerous move you can make with a cockroach is to invite it into your identity.

“I am ill.”
“I am stressed.”
“I am broken.”
“I am poor.”
“I am depressed.”

Every “I am …” that fuses your essence with the cockroach cements its place in your field.

A more accurate formulation would be:

• “There is stress moving through my field.”
• “There is a thought telling me I am broken.”
• “There is low energy right now.”

This is not semantics. It is energetic geometry:

• In the first case, the cockroach is you.
• In the second, the cockroach is on you.

You can remove something that sits on you.
It is harder to remove something you insist on being.

Energy as a bank account

To make this concrete, think of your energy as a bank account:

• You start with 100% potential energy (your inner light).
• Cockroach A eats 50%.
• Cockroach B eats 30%.
• Cockroach C eats 10%.

You are left with 10% available for:

• Your work
• Your relationships
• Your creativity
• Your leadership

Removing cockroaches does not give you new energy from outside. It simply:

• Stops unnecessary withdrawals
• Lets you use what was always yours

Even if you only remove “small” cockroaches at first, every one:

• Reduces the total drain
• Increases your available balance
• Strengthens your overall energetic position

Gravity and escape velocity

Negative thought fields behave like gravity.

They pull you in:

• The more you believe them, the closer you orbit them.
• The more energy you lose, the harder it feels to get away.

To escape gravity, a rocket needs escape velocity: a certain minimum speed / energy to leave the gravitational field.

Your system works similarly:

• As you remove cockroaches, your available energy rises.
• As your energy rises, you vibrate at a higher frequency.
• At a certain point, the lowest cockroaches can no longer reach you; you are simply too “high” for them to latch on.

You do not have to be perfect to notice this.

Even early on:

• If you repeatedly see and expel the same cockroach, it spends less time feeding on you.
• The time gaps between its visits are periods of pure surplus energy for you.
• Over months and years, this compounds.

At some point, you cross an internal threshold where:

• Certain old thought patterns no longer find any grip.
• They live in a band of frequency that you simply do not inhabit anymore.

This is not magic. It is energetic math.

Thought hygiene vs pest controller work

You can call this process “thought hygiene” if you like.

But hygiene sounds like gently wiping surfaces.

The cockroach metaphor invites something more active:

• You are not just cleaning.
• You are hunting.
• You are the vermin exterminator of your own mind.

Some people visualise:

• Catapulting cockroaches out of their field
• Stepping on them with a mental slipper
• Seeing a border guard deny them entry at passport control

Others, who are less visually wired, simply establish clear rules:

• “Certain categories of thought are no longer allowed to run unchallenged in my field.”
• “Whenever I notice one, I will question it and send it away.”

The form is less important than the stance:

• You are no longer a passive host.
• You are the one who decides who eats at your inner table.

Humor helps.

When you can say “Hey, ugly cockroach, not here” and mean it, you are already operating from a position of strength.

How to start your own cockroach hunt

You do not need a retreat to begin.

Here is a simple practice you can start today:

1. Notice your five H’s.
   Once a day, honestly rate Health, Happiness, Hope, Harmony, Humor on a simple low–medium–high scale. This tunes you into your energy state.
2. Catch one cockroach per day.
   At any moment when your energy drops, ask:
• “What thought just crossed my mind?”
• “Does it act like a cockroach (draining, heavy, repetitive)?”
3. Name it.
   “This is the ‘I am behind’ cockroach.”
   “This is the ‘I am not enough’ cockroach.”
4. Send it away.
   In your own language:
• “No. Not in my field.”
• “Ciao Amigo. You are not welcome here.”
• “You don’t get to eat here anymore.”
5. Repeat without drama.
   If it comes back, treat it the same way. Do not shame yourself for its return. Your job is just to catch it faster each time.

Over time, you may:

• Discover bigger, older cockroaches you were not ready to see before
• Feel a real increase in available energy
• Notice improvements in your five H’s without changing your external life

This is not about perfection.
It is about no longer letting invisible parasites run your leadership.

At higher levels of consciousness, you may see that even cockroaches are part of a larger play of unity.

But here, in your current role, with your current responsibilities, you have every right – and every reason – to keep your energy pantry for what truly matters.

(This article was inspired by a Conscious Conversation with a dear friend & professional colleague on 24th November 2025.)(ID:CO|AF)