Photo: Nathan Dumlao
The greatest addiction of all is thinking. – Eckhart Tolle
Have you ever been in conversation with a friend who is suffering and it is so clear that they are stuck in their head?
Maybe you’ve heard yourself remind someone you love to get out of their head.
An expression like “analysis paralysis” doesn’t come from nowhere. We’ve all been there.
Overthinking is the shadow of self awareness. Because we have placed such an extreme value on our cognition we have an overdeveloped thinking muscle and an atrophied feeling muscle. We live in probability (logic/reasoning/analysis) more than we live in possibility (creativity/imagination/curiosity).
Self awareness is a discipline that offers benefits to improve your quality of life:
- Be the observer, your attention is no longer hijacked
- Go beyond stimulus and response, you’re no longer a pinball in a pinball machine
- Access responsibility over reactivity, you get to choose
- Understandyour impact, your actions and your behavior don’t exist in isolation
- Reduce suffering, it doesn’t have to be so hard
- Go beyond neuroses, you have thoughts but you aren’t your thoughts
- Listen deeply, your intuition is always available to you
- Realize your interconnectedness, you are not alone
Self awareness is not the practice of obsessing, micromanaging, or endlessly “healing”. Self awareness is not analyzing your neurotic tendencies or dissatisfaction. That is called thinking and it is addictive and can be destructive.
The thinking mind is your identity, your ego. It’s what has you believe that you are a separate entity. It is what works tirelessly to mitigate risk and it is the generator of fear.
Your thinking mind serves you in many ways but likely it is overdeveloped and you have relied on it too heavily.
Your thoughts are often extremely unreliable.
More important than your thinking mind is your creative mind or your imagination. When you are not in a conscious relationship with your imagination, that brilliant capacity gets twisted and neurotic creating massive loops of suffering that are rooted in fear.
Rather than focusing so much time and energy on the thoughts that are endlessly hijacking your attention, take a breath, feel the sensations in your body, move, and vocalize.
If you are in the habit of paying close attention to your thoughts you are likely giving them more credence than they deserve.
You are a thinking machine. Your thoughts may not stop. But you can stop giving them so much attention.
As you begin to interrupt your thoughts, particularly those that do not serve you, you create space. That may feel unfamiliar at first but see if you can be with yourself without needing to fix, manage, or control something.
Try 4x7x8 breathing. Breathe in for four counts, hold for seven counts, and breathe out for eight counts. The simple practice of interrupting the addictive tendency to think will open up your intuition, your imagination, and your creativity.
Next time you notice yourself in a thinking loop that is creating a sense of suffering, fear, or dissatisfaction. Stop. Get up. Then move your body, breathe deeply, and vocalize nonverbally. Go to a park. Walk around the block. Dance intensely.
Get out of your head and into your body. Your thinking mind has done enough.
Want to learn a practice that top performers use to get out of their head? Check out this free 15 minute workshop where I break it down.
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