how to stop thinking, part 1
not professional advice
Sorry. It’s been a while. I have thought about this substack multiple times A DAY. I’m not kidding. I wish I were. The problem is that my brain is overloaded and you would think that would make for lots of content, but instead it makes something more like this:
And what I’m aiming for, or what I wish my brain would do when it’s full, is this:
I can tell when my brain is busy in an exciting and healthy way, vs. when it’s busy in an obsessive and worry-heavy way. I can tell because instead of focussing on the things I actually have control over, I focus on random, unimportant distractions. Most of them made up based on facts I have also made up. I create more problems to process instead of allowing myself the small amounts of space and time to relax or recover. And that, I imagine, looks sort of like this:
Many things have been contributing to this feeling. Sleeping bad (because my brain won’t turn off), prolonged stress (because I have a cool but hectic career), a loss of coping mechanisms (I quit smoking weed!), new projects, financial stress, a willy-nilly living situation, and of course, the already normal stresses of being alive. So, if I zoom out and take a look at the vulnerability factors, I’m aware that it makes PERFECT SENSE to feel a bit off-kilter mentally.
But wow, does that not help at all. It feels like I can’t find peace in my own brain. Like there’s someone interrupting me all the time. Like everything is firing all at once. Like I’m losing the plot. If I picture my brain as a game, like Rollercoaster Tycoon, OR WAIT, a Tamagotchi! If I picture my brain as a Tamagotchi, it feels like if I leave it alone for even a minute, it will die. I want to turn it off, I WANT to relax, but it feels irresponsible to do that, because everything would crumble and my organs would forget to work on their own.
One of my friends who I pay to like me (my therapist), tells me to try and separate my worries and unhelpful thoughts from things I can actually change or solve. She tells me to picture my worry brain as an annoying person on a bus. Sometimes they’re sitting at the back and I can ignore them, and then sometimes they’re sitting closer and it’s harder to ignore them, but I still need to get where I’m going, and whatever they have to say doesn’t change the final destination. Or it shouldn’t. I am finding that it does, because that person is very loud and very convincing.
The more I try to bring myself back, the more annoyed I am that I cannot bring myself back. The more aware I am of the nonsense I’m feeding myself, the more annoyed I am at the nonsense I am capable of feeding myself. And of course, the busier I get, the more focussed I need to be, the less focussed I become. The more time I spend awake at night thinking about how I’m awake when I should be sleeping and how if I fall asleep right now I’ll get 5 hours and 32 minutes of sleep but that number is dwindling quickly.
It’s a cute, neat little cycle. It’s not special, and it’s not even that complicated. We’re all overstimulated, and sometimes that stimulation is hard to counteract. Sometimes we don’t have, or we feel we don’t have, the time to step back. The time to take long, deep breaths, regulate our systems, touch grass, etc. More importantly, it’s really hard to step back when stepping back actually feels horrible. If I don’t have a podcast, or music, or a conversation, or a show, or a book to read, I’m left with my made up worry thoughts, re: everyone I love will die. Sometimes touching grass or being mindful makes me extremely aware of a bunch of shit I don’t have the skills to tackle, and then what? Touch MORE grass?? No wonder we don’t want to practice being mindful at a time when being mindful is gross and weird.
So what is the solution? I don’t actually have one. Sorry, again. But I do have small hacks that give me temporary relief from the gross and weird. Things that mimic or at least help me practice mindfulness in a way that is less threatening. I think, like most things that are difficult and require long-term commitment, it’s unreasonable to expect it to be easy and helpful immediately. It’s also unreasonable to try new, hard stuff, at a time when you’re already struggling. Currently my over-stimulation feels load-bearing and while I would love to quiet the nonsense, I don’t think aiming for complete silence is attainable. I might just be built this way. The annoying person on the bus may always be on the bus, and I can just hope to get better at tuning them out or asking them to kindly fuck off. I know that I want to build my mindfulness skills over time, and I know I don’t want to drown in my own busy-bus brain, but I also know it’s going to take a while. Maybe even all of the while. I’m not letting myself off the hook, I just don’t want to set the bar too high and then be sad or mad when I fail and my organs stop working. And I don’t want that for you either!
Hope this makes sense!
PS- Since my track record of posting has been pretty bad, I’m going to do myself a favour and make this a two-parter. I’ll be back soon with some tricks I use to stop thinking.*
*it is not possible to stop thinking