When thinking goes bad

I’ve been thinking about thinking.?

We all have an uncontrollable train of thoughts moving through our heads. Thoughts roll on in and most roll on out. I have a vivid image of a little red engine, with carriages steaming on through.?

However, sometimes a thought gets off the train. We notice it, hold on to it, engage with it, feeling its emotion. We make judgments and create meaning about the thought, and it influences our experience of life.

So, this morning, I was being creative, planning a programme for an event next year, as well as searching for some inspiration for using an underspend on a project.

I was googling, reading, thinking, reflecting, googling some more, and repeating the process, many times.?I came up with some ideas, captured them, reviewed and reorganised, and sent some emails to action a few aspects.?Great!

I wasn’t really aware of thinking and 3 hours passed pretty unnoticed.?Shout out to Cybbie the dog for her usual reminder to stop.?By the time I did, I felt I had made good progress. I was immersed in the task, in my groove, in flow, and the ideas came.?

Now let’s contrast this to yesterday.?I just couldn’t get started, couldn’t settle to anything.?Couldn’t get my head working on the stuff I needed to get done.?I was uncertain how to tackle the problems.?Nothing felt right.?No insights emerging.?In the end, I retired to the courtyard and potted up new some plants, just to make me feel like I’d accomplished something.

So, what was different??Same work to be done, same problems to solve.?One day, I felt dissatisfied and frustrated, and the next, I felt energised and productive.

Why is my thinking one day so different to another?

Creative thinking embraces imagination and the ability to envision innovative concepts that have not been previously realized.?It allows us to generate ideas, solve problems and explore the uncharted territory of our imaginations.?It is free and flowing, unconstrained and divergent.?Once we have explored, then we can become divergent, selecting and refining the most promising ideas for implementation.??Now, we can act, bridging the gap between imagination and reality.?All good.

But what happens if we get stuck somewhere in the process??Then it seems it can go one of two ways.?

1.?????Either we stay productive, give free rein to the imagination, generate more ideas, change our perspective to look at the problem from another angle.?And with perseverance, often we find a solution.?

Or

2.?????We get caught up in the emotion of the situation, become engaged with our thoughts and feelings, and get into a circular state reinforcing our stuckness.?The more we want a solution to the problem, the more elusive it becomes.?We judge the difficulty of the task, our ability to solve the problem, we start to doubt ourselves.?

Overthinking, excessive self-criticism, and rumination generate negative thinking patterns. These thoughts are often repetitive, uncontrollable, and intrusive, leading to heightened levels of anxiety, stress and dysfunctional.

Once we get stressed, executive functions, such as attention, memory, and decision-making are impaired, inhibiting creative thinking and problem-solving abilities. Anxiety further narrows focus, impeding the exploration of alternative ideas and hindering the generation of innovative solutions.

Stress activates the amygdala, a brain region involved in the processing of emotions, while reducing the activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for higher-order cognitive functions. This neural imbalance limits cognitive flexibility, inhibiting the ability to think creatively and find novel solutions.?The self-perpetuating spiral is downwards from here.

So, after my difficult day, when I took myself off to the courtyard, my pond and my plants, my happy place, I wasn’t dodging the problem.?I was resetting my brain and body.??

Taking a break, particularly when you are still actively engaged in something enjoyable but not cognitively demanding, allows mental relaxation. ?Our subconscious mind has time and space to incubate ideas, conjure new perspectives, generate cognitive shifts and see patterns, connections and meaning that were not previously apparent.?Often it feels like serendipity is at play and we find inspiration in seemingly random encounters, events and things. ?If we let our inner wisdom and intuition flourish, insights emerge.?Taking down time breaks cognitive loops and refreshes mental capacity and is a proven technique to stimulate creativity thinking, overcome blocks and improve the likelihood of achieving a flow state.

Understanding the distinction between these two thinking patterns and their impacts is crucial for fostering creativity, productivity, and overall well-being. By recognising and cultivating the conditions for flow and being aware of the presence of unhelpful, self-reinforcing thinking patterns, individuals can reduce distress and harness the power of creative thinking, to unlock their full potential and achieve desired outcomes in all aspects of life and work.

Don’t underestimate the power our thinking has on the quality of our lives. And when you get stuck?... Take a break.

#thinking #awareness #flow #creativity #blocks #break #reset