Medical research increasingly points to the fact that thinking and consciously controlling your thought life is one of the best ways, if not the best way of detoxing your brain. It allows you to get rid of those toxic thoughts and emotions that can consume and control your mind.
If I am fighting depression, anger, sadness or experiencing indigestion I might want to look at my thought life. What has been running through my mind lately about my closet relationships? What do I think about my job and or co-workers? What am I telling myself about my future? What am I saying about my body and the way I look?
I recently spoke to a wonderful and very capable husband and father who was struggling with anger. Anger was increasing and affecting the way he spoke to his wife and even at times how he interacted with his children. He also struggled with depression and motivation.
After talking about his thoughts regarding his work and the daily messages that ran through his mind it became clear that his consistent, negative thoughts about his job were growing. He fed these thoughts every day as he commuted to work. The thoughts went something like this. I don’t like where I work. I don’t really like how the bosses run things. I don’t like the equipment I have to work with. I don’t think what I do is very impactful. I don’t like the hours I have to put in or the shift I have to work on. These thoughts went around and around in his mind.
So if he can’t change the circumstance how does he cope with these thoughts? I suggested that he might want to become conscious of these thoughts. Don’t let them just free float through his mind. Grab them and begin to thank God for this job. It might go something like this. I thank you I have a job that feeds my family. I thank you God I am able to pay all the bills and have a nice place to live in. I thank you God that I have a body that works and allows me to do this job. I thank you God that it allows us to have time to be with my family…..
Change in your thinking is essential to detox the brain. Consciously controlling your thought life means not letting thoughts rampage through your mind. It means learning to engage interactively with every single thought that you have, and to analyze it before you decide either to accept or reject it.
How do you go about doing that? By “looking” at your mental processes. That may sound like a strange, if not impossible thing to do. After all, it’s not as if you can just crack open your skull like an egg and have a look at what is going on inside your brain.
It is possible, however, to look at your mental processes. In fact, it is not just possible, it is essential.
For example consider the following:
- How many “could-have”, “would-have”, “should-have” statements have you made today?
- How many “if onlys” were part of your inner vocabulary today?
- How many times have you replayed in your head a conversation or situation that pained you, or one that hasn’t even occurred yet?
- How many scenarios have you created of the unpredictable future?
- How much is speculation taking out of your day?
- How passive is your mind?
- How honest are you with yourself?
- Are you at cross-purposes with yourself – going through the motions, but not really committed to the goal, saying one thing but meaning another?
- How distorted is your thinking? Are you forming a personal identity around for example, a disease? Do you speak about “my arthritis”, “my multiple sclerosis”, “my heart problem”?
- Do you ever make comments like “nothing ever goes right for me”; “everything I touch fails”; “I always mess up”?
If you answered yes even to just one of these, your thought life needs detoxing right now. If you need help tuning into your thoughts or seeing the effects on your life and relationships, call me!