Slamming the Brakes on Mental Spin

The thing about a brain paralyzed by thoughts is that it is stuck in beliefs. And one belief surely stands out among others:

“I am my thoughts.”

The thing about a belief like that, is that it is completely invisible to you. It lies below the surface. It’s like a lens that colours your vision, like a pink-coloured lens or a green-coloured lens, and you don’t know that your perception is changed by that belief. That is, until you shed light on the lens, and you take it out or swap it for a better one.

And so the first step to get a mind to stop spinning, to stop over-analyzing, is to tell yourself:

“I am not my thoughts. These thoughts are not me.”

While you’re here, and since we’ve established that you might have other mind-lenses that colour your perception, other belief viruses infecting your mind systems, there’s a second step you can take to put the brakes on the mental spin.

You can go hunting for more. You can stop, invent a second version of you that’s a bit of a detective for mind lenses, then write down what you find and have a conversation with those thoughts. You’ll know you found a perception-altering lens when you spot words like “unless I…”, “surely I…”, “either I or…”, “I am a” and others.

“Surely, unless I finish this bit right here I’ll disappoint the client.” Maybe. Maybe if you don’t finish it and prioritize this other thing, your client will rave about your ability to discern.

“Either I go overboard or this product won’t get traction.” Interesting, it’ll work for those who really are feeling the problem, and in the shape the product is in, they won’t notice the edge cases only you know about. And besides, you can fix those later.

“I am just a programmer. I can’t be expected to do marketing.” Marketing is empathy for people, and you’re a person, so there must be a way to decode something new here.

And like this, by spotting an invisible lens causing your mind to spin, and then rewriting it as if you were a coach with an outside perspective, bit by bit your mind will stop to spin. You’ll regain your sense of self (you are not your thoughts), and the best part of you will be back on top.