How many times have you heard someone say, “if you would just control your thoughts then you wouldn’t be in (insert whatever crummy situation you are struggling with right now)?” If your like me, I’m guessing you have heard it plenty of times. I don’t know about you but when people tell me that if I would just control my thoughts I would be better off, I kind of get annoyed and think to myself, “Thank you captain obvious.” However, sometimes that’s easier said than done.
Have you ever taken a minute to think about the thoughts that you have? What are they and where do they come from?
Often times our thoughts are just random ideas passing through our mind. They often come as a result of circumstances. Example: If I’m hungry and watching a commercial with a hamburger, there’s a good chance my thoughts may be drawn towards eating a hamburger. However, often times our thoughts aren’t even ours, they are a result of our programming or conditioning from our past. So needless to say often times our thoughts can be sneaky little liars.
We have so many thoughts flying through our head all the time, that our mind filters them. It generally entertains thoughts that we attach negative or positive emotion to. Imagine that you were reading an article that said “A Freeze Has Caused Brussel Sprouts to increase 100x in price”; Unless you love brussel sprouts, you may quickly move to another article. The reason being you don’t really care about this news so it doesn’t really affect you. It is the only the things care about or are trying to avoid that will really affect our thought.
If we don’t attach to our thoughts negatively or positively, they will just keep passing through.
I also want to address that when you have a negative thought even if it be a super crazy thought that you are shocked it popped into you head, do not beat your self up.
YOU ARE NOT A BAD PERSON FOR HAVING A NEGATIVE THOUGHT, YOU ARE HUMAN!!
Once again, Don’t beat yourself up for having a shocking thought, just realize it is just a thought, take a breath and let it go.
Remember that we are divine, spiritual beings having a human experience – which means at times we are going to have very human, even shocking thoughts… And it is okay to have these thoughts. Just remember that you don’t have to act on them. You are 100% okay just the way that you are, even with your crazy thoughts.
Now, what if I told you that you could actually take all the power away from your thoughts? What if I told you that instead of having to overthink or even suppress them; you could simply be aware of them and let them go?
What would it be like if it was okay for you to just be the magnificent and amazing human being that you are with all of your challenges, follies, and as I call them — your crazy leprechaun thoughts?
We all have crazy thoughts pop up in our head – the trick is that we don’t need to entertain those thoughts. Think about it for a second, You go on a date with the person of your dreams, they give you a hug at the door and leave thanking you for the great time. You go inside your house and don’t receive the infamous post date test. After 10 minutes you start thinking … oh no maybe they weren’t into me… 30 minutes later… I really thought this was the one… 60 min… This is just like every other time, they were just playing me… 90 minutes… I’m never going to get married… 100 minutes … I’m never going to have kids… 120 minutes … I’m going to die alone…
121 minutes after they dropped you off you receive a text, “Hey Taylor, I had a really great time tonight, I’d enjoy spending more time with you 🙂
122 minutes…. I knew this was the right one… I always knew!!
This is how we think, we let our trains of thought get way out of control. Now if you are an over thinker, please understand I often struggle with this as well. So I am not pointing fingers. Overthinking is often where we get into trouble.
I would like to introduce you to a metaphor I often share with my clients.
Our mind is a train station of thought. Everyday thousands of thought come in and out of our train station, if we pay them no attention they simply and quietly pass through our station with no fan fare.
However, using the example above, Imagine yourself looking over and seeing a train of thought roll into your station that on the side in big red graffiti letters reads “They weren’t into me.” Once you begin to focus on that thought and entertain it, the train stops in your mental train station and passengers (other thoughts) begin to get off the train and multiply… the first passenger I really thought this was the one begins to multiply with tons of other sub thoughts of all the times it hasn’t worked out for you, how you felt about it, and the impact it had on you emotionally. These sub thoughts are like hundreds of little children running around the station of your mind. This causes you to not be able to think about almost anything else. Then another big thought hops off the train “I’m never going to get married.” And that begins to multiply into hundreds of future scenarios in which you don’t end up getting married and all the thoughts that accompany that… now if we jump ahead to the I’m going to die alone thought, by this time you have hundreds or thousands of all kinds of thoughts, sub thoughts and emotions running through your mind and you may even feel like you are going crazy. Even when you finally get that text from the person that you were waiting for, you are so wired that it takes a while to let all the crazy leprechaun thoughts pass through.
Now, what if there was simpler way? What if when that first train of thought rolled into your train station of thought you simply could say, ” oh, there’s that thought they weren’t into me. Oh well what is it that I was working on?”
I realize it’s not always this easy and I too have had my own scenarios similar to the above in all aspects of our lives, but when we can simply stop it at the first thought, we simply allow that train to keep on passing through and we are able to focus on the life we are wanting to create instead of the thoughts that come from our fears.
Give it a try this week, when you have that negative thought pop up in your head or you start to freak out. Simply acknowledge that it is simply a thought and you can let it just keep passing through.
Now if you are one of those that overthinks everything and want to understand better how thought affects every aspect of your life, please contact me and we can discuss how coaching with me can help you create the life that you truly desire.