Before I answer this question I would like to see if we understand the difference between thinking and overthinking! In my opinion it is very difficult or probably impossible to draw a line between the two, especially in realtime when one steps over that supposed line. Overthinking is that which keeps us going in circles or leads us over the ledge. But in either case we only realise it after the fact and not before, so we are unable to prevent it even if we find out the perfect answer to this question.
Because overthinking is the leaves of the tree and if you keep getting rid of the leaves, the tree will keep producing more, endlessly. Let us not waste our time on getting rid of the leaves and instead focus on the root. Our habitual tendency to live in our mind is the root cause. The following article explains this.
Self_Love_Respect ·
1y
Is it normal to experience uncontrollable self-talk?
If you define normal as something that happens with the majority of the people living on this planet, then yes, it is normal to experience uncontrollable self-talk. But if you ask whether it is good for you to experience this condition, I would say, no. In self-talk, who is talking to who? Self-talk means you are talking to yourself. But you need someone to be talking to, isn’t it? Self talk is usually the voice in your mind playing out. It is as if a recorded audio is on auto play in the mind. Whose voice? The voices of all the people in your life, the society around you, telling you constantly what to do and what not to do. It could be negative or it could be positive. If you successfully distract your mind from this activity, it would end up doing something else in the mind. These include the dialogues we carry out mentally with an imaginary person, memories of past events, worries about the future, planning, working, calculating, computing, watching something (video), listening something (audio such as podcasts), reading, studying, focusing, concentrating, paying attention, fantasising, imagining, dreaming, etc. We are habituated to this and so it seems to be happening effortlessly and automatically although we are doing it. Our mind gets tired of this constant uncontrollable, unstoppable habit and wants to rest. It actually gets exhausted. We easily know when our physical body is exhausted and we rest it by sitting down or lying down or taking a nap or long sleep or having a hot bath or a nice massage. But we have no metric or measure to find out when our mind is tired and we have no means to allow our mind to rest because any of the above resting that we give our physical body doesn’t rest the mind. Mental exhaustion shows up in the form of the following: Stress, worrying, indecisiveness, feeling restless, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, burnout, insomnia, impatience, constant irritation, etc. If you are feeling any of these it indicates your mind is tired and no amount of sleeping will be enough to make this mental tiredness go away. Long term mental exhaustion is the root cause for all the chronic life-style diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, etc. Positive self-talk is not an answer to this. It doesn’t help because the mind is already tired and we end up doing something more with the mind so it is neither effective nor does it give rest. I have written extensively in my Quora posts and previous answers about how to enjoy a quiet mind and allow our mind to completely rest and be rejuvenated. Please browse through and read a few of them if you are interested to begin controlling the uncontrollable self-talk.
Learning to keep the mind fresh and energetic by allowing it to rest adequately is the solution. Grounding or regaining our connection with the earth energies (the electromagnetic field of energy emanating from the core of the earth) will help quieten the mind and allow it to rest. Once we learn this, the next step is to cultivate a habit of returning back this practice repeatedly whenever our mind gets tired. Once we cultivate this as our lifelong habit we would have gained mastery over our thinking-mind. We would be able to us our mind for thinking only when needed and switch it off and return back within to enjoy being alive in our body at all other times.
I have suggested some very effective daily practices that can help in the following article.
Selvan Srinivasan · 1y
What are some ways to train your brain to be more positive?
The greatest positive attitude is the attitude of gratitude. The core nature of our mind is that of gratitude. As little babies, all of us were always in our place of joy and gratitude within. Our home within is our happy place and the energy of gratitude is available in limitless quantities there. We have simply got lost and forgotten our way back home to the grounded place within us. How did we get lost and where did we get lost? We got lost in our thinking mind by getting engaged with the non-stop mental activity in it. The following article explains this. Simply pause for a minute and practice with the following experiment and see how you feel. What is gratitude and how to return back to our natural state of gratitude is explained in the following article. After reading this, I suggest a sitting practice of gratitude meditation with the guided meditation audio link shared below. Selvans Guided Meditation – Opening the flow of Gratitude:
For more information and plenty of free resources to aid with the practice of meditation and deep healing, please visit my website.https://awarenessjourney.org/