Can we control our thoughts?
Published by Maz in Anxiety and excessive thinking · 9 October 2024
Hi, welcome to my blog which explores how much we can control our thoughts.
This I believe is such an important area for all of us, even if we are not suffering from anxiety but are living constantly with regrets and fears. The more our thoughts control us, the louder and more intrusive they are the more we feel we have no control, and it can seem like our thoughts control us.
I wanted to use this blog to share what I have learnt, and am still learning both in my own personal journey and with working with my clients.
You will find that all the following sections over-lap but I have divided them up as different ways to consider the ways we can gain back control of our thoughts. First of all, let’s look at our relationship with our thoughts.
Do you always believe your thoughts?
Thinking about your thinking can be useful. Yes, that does sound like more thinking, not less I know.
But when we stop and think about our thoughts, we are able to start to consider our relationship to them.
Thoughts are what I call contaminated, they are affected by others around us, by what we watch, listen to or what we see. Our thoughts are affected by images and they are also affected by our past experiences when we were in different circumstances.
When we stop and consider our thoughts, we can learn to question them such as;
Are my thoughts relevant to me at this time or outdated?
Are my thoughts true; do I believe them from my perspective on things?
Are my thoughts worth spending time and energy on?
When we start to question our thoughts, we often take a different stance to them
We consciously or unconsciously orient towards certain things; these are often the things which will then feed our thoughts.
I remember coming out of a meeting with a colleague and we discussed the meeting and the people in it. We could have been in different meetings as we picked up very different things depending on what it was we focused on. It can be the same when you walk through a park, some things you will see while other things you don't.
When you become more aware of your thoughts you can also become aware of what is feeding them.
You may have orientation habits which feed your insecurities.
We may have orientation habits which feed our fears for the future.
When you become aware of your orientation habits and what you focus on you can start to choose what to focus on. This takes practice, but if you can do it you are starting to control what is feeding your thoughts.
For example, you feel anxious about getting older, and as a result you seek out articles about old age, this will feed your anxiety and give your thoughts lots to chew over and possibly spiral.
If you instead focus on different articles, say about travel you can replace your anxious thoughts and take them to new horizons.
Hyper vigilant
This is a state of increased alertness where you are constantly on the lookout for certain information. Again, you may be conscious about it, or it may be habitual and you are not aware you are doing it, until that is you become aware and realise this is what you are doing.
Here are two examples;
1) Your mother said you were putting on weight when you last saw her, when you go out you are constantly on the lookout for signs of this. Looking at your clothes; ‘are they fitting right’ and peoples looks ... ‘do they think I look fat in this’ etc?
2) Five years ago, you were approached in a busy pub by a drunk man who made unwanted advances towards you. A friend rescued you but it left you shaken. Now when you go into a pub, especially if it is busy, you are 'hyper-vigilant' always looking out for someone who may approach you.
If your hyper vigilance is negatively affecting your life, you may have unresolved trauma, and have not dealt with situations from the past. Talking to a qualified therapist who deals with trauma can help you work through these traumatic incidents; it cannot change the past but it can change how you relate to it, and how it is stored in your memory.
Comparisons
We seem to live in a culture which is weighed down with comparisons. Children at school are compared against each other or some statistics and then graded. We get compared to others through comments from those around us. We compare ourselves to other people's lives especially through social media.
We often compare ourselves to those who have what we want. Or compare ourselves to those who look the way we would like to look, have the lives which we dream of. Again, this is why social media can be so bad, as it gives snap shots of people’s lives and often gives the wrong impression of what is really going on. Yet it draws us in and is compelling us to look at it, feeding our insecurities and adding to our racing thoughts. The social media sites themselves are designed to feed into what our orientation habits are, so in essence they can be targeting our insecurities.
We can learn to let go of comparing ourselves to others, we can start to accept ourselves, decide what our own goals and aspirations are. We can then let go of the negative thoughts which are based on comparing ourselves with others.
We get anxious and the amygdala in our brain takes over.
In my blog "Taking control of your anxiety" from the 28th May 24, I gave more detail on how our anxiety gets activated and how we feed it, you may want to read this for more information.
Relevant to this blog, it’s good to remember the following;
*The amygdala will work on connections which are between something, a person, or an event and what you fear.
*These connections are made from what you pick up from what you hear, smell, see, feel or touch, or from your thoughts.
*These connections are based on previous experiences and they don't give any detail.
*If the amygdala senses any danger (physical or emotional) it will set off warning bells in the body, sensations we detect as our anxiety.
*These sensations we may have learnt not to notice, but it can send off a trail of anxious thoughts, which in turn feed the amygdala and can cause our anxiety spiral.
*When the amygdala activates our anxious state, it will do so not connected with our frontal cortex, so it therefore by-passes the reasoning part of our brain, we feel we have no control.
When we learn we can challenge our amygdala we can break into the escalation of spiralling thoughts.
First we need to regulate ourselves by calming ourselves down which will bring back our frontal cortex ‘on line’… we can reason again.
Then with reasoning we can stop the thoughts from feeding our amygdala.
*We can recognise that our anxiety is based on experiences from the past when we were unsafe, and now we may know we are safe.
*We can recognise that our anxiety is triggering events from the past which are not applicable to our current situation and it is not relevant in our current situation; we are safe.
For more information on calming yourself down see my series of blogs on 'Reclaiming Calm'.
If you find it difficult to take control of your anxiety in this way it may be worth finding a trained professional who can work with you in this way.
Feeding our thinking.
It’s worth being curious about what you do which might be feeding your thoughts. Consider the following:
*Does your choice of TV programmes give energy to your thoughts? E.g. with images of death, violence, aggression, murder etc?
*Are you sensitive to images of death and destruction? You may want to limit the news you watch to the main facts?
*Do you often feel you are not enough, yet spend time scrolling through social media comparing your lives with others?
*Do you regret your past, yet spend your time focusing on the past, instead of looking forward?
Once we are aware of how we are feeding our thoughts we can decide what we want to focus on and what we put our energy into.
We can, with practice, make the decision to move from our thinking into the present moment.
It can be habitual to live in our heads, but the more we can practice changing our focus from our thoughts and then go into our body the more we can be released to live in the moment.
Some people choose mindfulness, meditation, or yoga, and for others it can be a whole range of ways they connect with themselves, their feelings, body sensations and their 5 senses (touch, sound, smell, sight and hearing).
The more we learn to re-orientate our focus away from our thinking the more we can connect with ourselves, even if just for a couple of minutes at a time. When the thoughts come, we can then decide to challenge them, and let them go, freeing us up to live in the moment.
It takes awareness and practice to take control of your thinking, but when you do it can release so much energy, and time and allow you to live life instead of just enduring it.
I hope you find this blog useful, your comments are welcome.
Maz
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