I have always loved this tongue twister
I thought a thought
but the thought I thought
wasn’t a thought
I thought a thought !!
likewise we keep thinking; and thinking; and thinking (as many as “50000” thoughts per day)…….it goes on till you think what am I thinking? May be its an hour sitting on ur desk and you don’t feel like getting the work done, you’ve been in bed for an hour and you still can’t sleep. It can be about your job, your health, or perhaps fighting & uniting in relationships has created a storm in your head. Some or the other daily challenges makes your idea generator to spin on its wheel of worry. You just can’t get it out of your thoughts and unknowingly invest hours to solve it in your head & before you realize this; another hour has passed. Next comes a thought OMG! I can’t sleep, next day will be a waste & I will be a wreck. You change the self talk to ” I have to sleep now”.
Does it do the trick? I leave it for you to answer…..
We all have been here someday, at some point. There is good news : There are practical solutions, something more effective and doable. Its not going to be a usual mundane advice like……”BE STRONG” ; “BE POSITIVE” ; “STOP WORRYING” ; “ITS GOING TO BE OKAY”. If that would have been the case you might not have read it till this far.
Lets get you involved. Do this simple exercise and follow the instructions. Be careful. Don’t think of a “pink elephant” riding on a “blue turtle” and flying into the horizon. Remember don’t think of it !! Do you realize that you are thinking of exactly the thing I have asked you to not think about. Interesting isn’t it ? So when you worry you tell yourself ” Don’t Think about it ” “Don’t Think about it ” and what exactly are you doing in this effort to avoid this worry. YOU ARE FOCUSING ON IT and so it never works and you keep falling into loops. What to do about it ? I am shortly going to discuss some creative, innovative and even odd tips and tricks that shall help you deal with your recurrent worries. Before we do that its important to understand; when we worry its not about your present, its not threatening in that very moment when you start worrying. We either worry about something that happened in past (by questioning it how, what, why, something that shouldn’t have happened or something you could have done about it, something you regret), or its about your future ( how will it happen? will it happen? when will it happen? will it be for good or bad?…..you can continue to add your own personal versions here). What we ignore is where we are now “PRESENT MOMENT”, its beauty, its existence and we miss out on magical moments while we are busy worrying about something we don’t have a control on. Tell me later if you agree. Lets understand how to train your mind in order to fix this problem. Here are different approaches to try yourself :
- Take hands off the horn
You repeatedly check time before a presentation or interview. You replay in your head having said something stupid, wishing you could take it back and something all of us do keep honking in traffic. You desperately try to take control of things you can’t control. Its like panicking swimmer who slaps water, screams and swallows water instead of staying afloat. How can you command a situation that is not in your control? Stay mindful while you are in that situation and you will actually feel far more in control.
- Fix a worry time
All too often we take an impulsive approach towards worries. Like the watsapp ping, worries show up unannounced and you stop everything to attend it. What if you don’t respond right away? Keep a specific time just for your worries, like 6-6:30 in the evening. Whenever you catch yourself worrying about something jot it down and resolve to come back to it @ 6:30. There you go tell your brain not now and you are free.
- Identify False Alarms
That rapid heartbeat doesn’t mean you are having a heart attack, it’s a natural response to arousal, may be because of stairs you just climbed or boss saw you reading a novel @ work. Many thoughts leading to worries are just background noise and we anxiously interpret them as cues of concern. Think of these thoughts as a fire engine passing by. Now that you have noticed, now let the thoughts go. Chill !!
To be continued in next blog