Overwhelmed by thinking – and unhappy

Do you sometimes have the feeling that your brain has a mind of its own and your thoughts have a life of their own, so that in the worst case you become entangled in them? Maybe you even lie awake in bed at night when you actually want to sleep? Well, that's perfectly normal, but you can actively do something about it. And that's easier than you may think. 

Understanding the mind

Let us first look at how our mind is working at all. Our mind is an excellent tool that we can use to solve complex problems and master tasks in a targeted manner. A wonderful gift. A wonderful instrument and a good servant, but a bad master. What does that mean?

As long as we control our thoughts, as long as we use our thinking purposefully, it is a very helpful instrument. But if we let our mind off the leash, then it behaves like a young dog. It jumps from one corner to the other and does whatever it wants. Sometimes it also goes crazy.

There is a U.S. study that arrives at a clear conclusion: The wandering mind is an unhappy mind.

Driven through everyday life

For many people, everyday life looks something like this: You wake up in the morning, then a few seconds of rest until the first thought comes up. "What day is it today? OK, Tuesday. Oh, no, the 10:00 a.m. meeting with the boss and then in the afternoon, oh no, with the customer..." One thought follows another. In the worst case, you get up, take a shower and – figuratively speaking – the boss, your colleagues at work, your assistant, the customer, they are all already there with you. And your mind is already at work, although actually you are still in the shower. So you are not really present.

We have 60,000 to 80,000 individual thought processes per day, a study says. Most of them are repetition. Most of them are the same as yesterday, the same as last week, the same as last year or the past years. We talk to ourselves again and again. And many of our thoughts are not necessarily positive, encouraging and exhilarating, but tend to be critical, remorseful about the past, and worried about the future.

Letting go of the past

Our mind likes to hang around in the past when it has nothing else to do. Nevertheless, it has a tendency to hang around in the future, hoping or worrying about what is to come. As a result, our mind is often not present at the moment. There is also a significant difference between a real problem you are actually facing, and a problem produced by your mind. But does it "change anything" if you are worried? Basically not. It is resulting in only one thing - you feeling worse.

Our mind is an excellent storyteller, that is undeniable. And in fact it does nothing else but what it is meant to do: producing thoughts.

Uncontrolled thinking is a bad habit

It is important to understand that you do not have to believe everything your mind has in store for you. For many people, habitual and uncontrolled thinking is a bad habit. Often, we project ourselves into a bad mood... The good news is that you can also distance yourself or even decouple yourself from this uncontrolled automatic thinking. Imagine your mental noise is like a radio. Just like a radio, you can turn down the volume of your thoughts. You cannot turn it off completely but you can at least turn down the volume so that your thoughts are only running in the background. Thus you do not really have to consciously pay attention to every thought that arises. In the best case you can even change the channel – to something more positive or constructive.

Images help control thoughts

Imagine, for example, that your thoughts are like clouds in a blue sky. Clouds are forming at some point and are growing. Sometimes to large grey thunderclouds, as for example when our thoughts grow into worried monsters. Now you can just let these clouds pass. You don't have to jump on every cloud and take a close look at it.

Another image is that of a river. My clients like to use this particular example very much by imagining their stream of thoughts as a river that streams along. You do not necessarily have to swim in it and try to keep your head above water. Rather, you can sit on the river bank and just watch the flowing water. You are simply a visual witness to your stream of thoughts.

Another alternative is that you imagine your thoughts as a busy road. Every passing car is a thought. You can sit on the side of the road and just watch for a little while. You don't have to get into every single car and ride in it.

How important is mindfulness?

Ultimately, all we are talking about here is mindfulness in dealing with one's own thinking. Mindfulness, or presence, is about better listening to oneself. Dealing with stress and stressful thoughts is first and foremost a listening exercise. The better you recognize and perceive your inner dialogues and listen to or watch them in a neutral way, the sooner you recognize your needs, can take them seriously and adjust your behavior accordingly.

Awareness is therefore the first step for a conscious change, for consciously dealing with your own thoughts.

You will succeed if you let your thoughts sink in. And by sinking in, I mean just sitting down for once, just being without constantly thinking of anything. This may seem difficult at first because the mental noise simply has the upper hand. Over time, however, mindfulness exercises will help you reach a point where you can quickly calm down from the mental noise. That it becomes quieter and that a very pleasant feeling of freedom and space is created.

I hope you will increase your personal efficiency with this impulse to really take off.