One of the amazing things about the human brain is that we can think and work things out in our head. This process helps us navigate through our complex daily lives. We can arrive at the right place at the right time and manage all those everyday tasks almost automatically day in and day out.
However thinking can also get us into a lot of mental complexity. Especially when it becomes obsessive thinking such as obsessive compulsive disorder. Now we don’t even need to have OCD to start getting stuck in a loop of nonsensical personal arguments with ourselves. This type of thinking can bring stress and anxiety into our daily lives without us even knowing it.
For instance we may have spoken to someone and felt they were a bit offhand or rude. But we don’t know anything about that person’s feelings or experiences that day, or maybe we just feel a little vulnerable ourselves. This does not stop our inner conversation getting straight into gear and giving all sorts of reasons why they “should have behaved better”, “what is wrong with them?”, “what is wrong with me?” etc. etc. This is our primal brain trying to justify our dominance or position in the primate hierarchy and since this thinking is developed from our primal feelings it is very hard to switch off.
Once our cognitive mind recognises that our brain is making a lot of this up it can help release us from this interminable loop of nonsense that seems to take up a lot of our everyday thinking. And it often is nonsense, or as I call it “Fairy Tales” since these thoughts are not based on facts but on us making up stories in our head.
The brain likes to make up “Fairy Tales”, stories, so that in effect we can “Feel Safe” and “Right”. To feel relaxed and safe is the state we would like to be in but unfortunately when we try to generate our “happy, feel good brain chemicals” by making up stories we won’t feel happy for very long.
So my 21 day challenge is to interrupt that “Fairy Tale” and call it out for what it is. It may feel a bit weird at first but after a while you will notice less of that sort of thinking taking up space in your mind. Don’t waste any more time telling yourself “Fairy Tales” that really have no basis in reality.
Then you really will feel safe, relaxed and comfortable.