Getting Out of My Head

Our mind is a powerful tool.

We can sit and ponder the intricacies of the universe, the inner workings of the human heart, and the deeper meaning of life itself.

We can imagine. Create. Solve. Understand.

We can use our minds to make meaning of this strange and beautiful experience of being human.

More often, though, our minds wander somewhere else.

Into worry.

Into planning.

Into replaying conversations that have already happened or rehearsing conversations that haven’t.

Into all of the what-ifs, should-haves, could-haves, and maybes that can pull us away from the only moment we are actually living.

The mind is remarkably good at creating stories.

And once it has a story, it can become remarkably difficult not to believe it.

I know this because I have spent a lot of time inside stories my mind created.

At one point, I was told that I was a “relationship ruiner.”

That I was incapable of having and maintaining a relationship and was, now, ruining another one.

I was deeply hurt by this judgment.

And instead of observing the words, considering them, and deciding whether they were actually true, I latched onto them.

I let them bounce around in my mind like a game of Pong.

I got stuck in my thoughts and gave my inner mean girl full reign.

She told me that I was unlovable.

Yelled that everyone would leave me.

Whispered that I was toxic.

Said that I would never be in a long-term healthy relationship.

Assessed that I deserved abuse and disinterest.

Hollered, again and again, that I ruin things.

My mind did what it does best…

it worried and gnawed those words like a bone, that I was a relationship ruiner, and multiplied them until I was buried underneath the onslaught.

The words became a story.

The story became a belief.

And eventually, the belief began to feel like truth.

Now, looking back with space and distance I understand something that I didn’t understand then:

A thought is not a fact.

A feeling is not a fact.

And someone else’s assessment of me is not an objective description of who I am.

This is where I think I used to misunderstand the idea of getting out of my head and into my body.

I thought it meant I needed to stop thinking all together.

To quiet my mind.

To get away from all those troublesome thoughts.

I don’t think that anymore.

I don’t want to be at war with my mind.

I want to learn how to sit beside it.

To notice what it is doing.

To hear the stories it is telling me without immediately stepping inside of them.

This has become especially important for me lately as I’ve returned to dating.

I am learning to watch.

To observe.

To let things unfold without immediately deciding what they mean.

Because my mind is very, very good at filling in the blanks.

Give it a silence and it will create a reason.

Give it an unanswered question and it will invent an answer.

Give it a little uncertainty and it will happily construct an entire future.

Sometimes that is useful.

Sometimes it is imagination.

Sometimes it is intuition.

And sometimes it is simply the mind trying desperately to make uncertainty feel less uncertain.

I am learning to tell the difference.

That doesn’t mean I never worry.

I do.

It doesn’t mean I don’t replay things or wonder what someone meant or imagine what might happen next.

Of course I do.

I’m human.

The difference is that I am becoming more willing to notice the thought without feeding it.

I can say, Oh. There’s that story again.

And then I can decide whether I want to keep reading.

Sometimes I literally flick the thoughts away.

I take my fingers and move them around my head as though the thoughts are annoying mosquitoes, one by one.

Flick.

Gone.

Flick.

Gone.

It sounds ridiculous.

And it helps.

Sometimes I need something more physical.

I need to shake it off.

Dance.

Walk.

Run.

Take a shower and pay attention to the water against my skin.

Notice what I can hear.

What I can smell.

What I can taste.

Feel my feet on the floor.

Breathe.

Sigh.

Yawn.

Make love.

Stretch.

Move.

Come back into the body that is actually here, in this moment, rather than continuing to live inside the one my mind has constructed.

Because I don’t have to get out of my mind because my mind is bad.

I need to be able to move between my mind and my body.

Between thinking and experiencing.

Between analyzing and simply being.

My mind is a tool.

A magnificent one, but a tool is meant to be used.

Not worshipped.

Not obeyed.

And certainly not allowed to convince me that every thought passing through it deserves to become a belief.

Maybe if I had understood that when I was called a relationship ruiner, I would have been able to hold those words differently.

I might have recognized that they came from someone who was hurting.

Someone who wanted me to hurt because they were hurting.

I could have listened.

I could have considered whether there was anything worth learning.

And then I could have let the rest go.

Instead, I carried those words around and allowed my mind to turn them into something much larger than they ever needed to be.

That is what rumination does.

It takes a moment and gives it a life of its own.

I don’t want to do that anymore.

I want to watch.

To observe.

To learn.

To allow.

To feel what is actually happening rather than immediately creating a story about what it means.

Because not every thought needs an answer.

Not every feeling needs an explanation.

Not every silence means something.

Not every possibility is a prophecy.

And not every thought that enters my mind deserves to take root.

We get to decide what we tend.

What we water.

What we release.

Our minds will wander.

They will worry.

They will tell stories.

That is what minds do.

Our work isn’t necessarily to stop them.

It is simply to notice.

And then, gently, come back.

To this body.

This breath.

This moment.

This life that is actually happening.

Right here.

Right now.

Always,
Your Trusted Friend ❤︎