Our thoughts affect our body.
Have you ever found that you just can’t stop thinking about someone — what they did or said, and how they hurt you by their actions? When someone hurts you, or gossips behind your back, do you get stuck thinking about it for hours, or even days?
Maybe you’re washing dishes, driving, or walking the dog but you can’t stop thinking about how unkind, untrue and self-centered the things that person said were. Their image and their words keep resurfacing. Three hours, three days, three weeks later, there they are — you see their face in front of you, even if you haven’t seen them in all that time.
Hurtful words can stay with us for days, as we think about them again and again.
How can we stop feeling embroiled in other people’s craziness? How can we stop thinking about a person or situation — what we should have, or could have, done differently — when the same thoughts keep looping back and playing through our mind, again and again?
Or maybe, for you, it’s not about a person. It’s about what you got or didn’t get, what you need but don’t have; what just isn’t right in your life. Usually, of course, there is a person involved whom you feel deserves blame for whatever is wrong.
The Physical Effects
This is all toxic cyclical thinking. And most of us know that this kind of ruminating is both emotionally and physically harmful to us.
In fact, studies show that a ruminating mind is an unhappy and unhealthy mind. When our mind is unhappily fraught with replaying altercations, resentments or losses, we marinate in a cascade of harmful inflammatory stress chemicals and hormones, linked to almost every disease we can name. Increasingly, scientists can pinpoint how ruminating plays a role in diseases including depression, cancer, heart disease, and autoimmune disease. The stress chemicals we wallow in are far worse for us than the thing that brought them on in the first place.
Cultivating a Healthy Mind
Most people work so hard to remove whatever is toxic from their lives; maybe you buy organic, avoid unhealthy foods, and remove chemicals from your home. Yet, most people put very little concerted effort into trying to removing toxins from their minds. What is the solution for getting rid of toxic thinking?
We can nourish a healthy mind with our thoughts and mindfulness.
These 10 small, but powerful, ideas work for me. Many are based on teachings from today’s leaders in mindfulness psychology and meditation. Choose the ones that resonate most with you.
1. Less said, more time
Saying less and letting more time pass when dealing with a difficult, reactive person is almost always a smart move. It allows us to simmer down, let it go, and take the high road. Often, with time, the thing we’re annoyed about just falls away. We often feel the need to respond and react to difficult people or situations right away, which is why we stew so much over what to say or do next. Some Buddhist psychologist suggests that instead, we simply give ourselves permission to wait and see what happens next.
2. Move away from the blame game
Picking apart past events and trying to assign blame (including blaming oneself) is rarely productive. Bad things and misunderstandings most often ‘happen’ through a series of events; like a domino effect. Generally, no one person is entirely to blame for the end result. Blaming others is counterproductive.
3. Deal with your biggest problem first
No matter what’s happened, the biggest problem we face is our own anger. Our anger creates a cloud of emotion that keeps us from responding in a cogent, productive way. In that sense, our anger really is our biggest problem. Deal with yourself — meditate, exercise, take a long walk, say less and give it more time, whatever it takes — before you deal with anyone else.
4. Don’t try to figure others out
Ask yourself, if others tried to figure out what you’re thinking, or what your motivations are, how right do you think they’d be? They probably wouldn’t have a clue as to what’s really going through your mind. So why try to figure out what others are thinking? Chances are, you would be wrong, which means all that ruminating would be a colossal waste of time.
5. Your thoughts are not facts
Don’t treat them as if they are. In other words, don’t believe everything you think. We experience our emotions — anxiety, tension, fear and stress keenly in our bodies. Our emotions are physical. We often take this as a sign that our thoughts must be facts. How could we feel so bad if our feelings weren’t true? When we’re emotionally hijacked by worry, regret, fear, anxiety, and anger, to remember that the emotional and physical state we experience is “real but not true”.
6. How can you grow from this?
When we are locked in anger, taking offence over something said or done, making judgments, or fuming over how we were treated, we only add to our own reservoir of suffering. An event + our reaction = suffering. When we’re able to be present with our feelings and inquire why we’re experiencing such a strong reaction, and what our feelings tell us about ourselves, it becomes a learning opportunity. An event + inquiry + presence = growth. Center your thoughts on growth.
7. You’re not a time traveler
When we churn over past events, we often search for how we might have done things differently to prevent a regrettable outcome. But what happened yesterday is as much in the past as what happened a thousand or more years ago. We can’t change what took place way back then, just like we can’t change what happened a week ago.
8. Forgive, for your sake
It is not necessary to be loyal to your suffering. We are so loyal to our suffering, focusing on the trauma of ‘what happened to me.’ Yes, it happened. Yes, it was horrible. But is that what defines you? Forgiveness is not something we do just for the other person. We forgive so that we can live free of the acute suffering that comes with holding onto the past. In other words, forgive for you.
9. Send them loving kindness
When you can’t stop thinking about someone who’s hurt you or who’s driving you crazy, try to imagine yourself sending them a beautiful ball of white light. Place them in that ball of light. Surround them with it, holding that white light around them, until your anger fades. Try it, it really works.
10. The 90 second rule
To free your mind, you first have to break your thought pattern. After 90 seconds an emotion will arise and fall. It only takes ninety seconds to shift out of a mood state, including anger. Give yourself ninety seconds — about 15 deep in and out breaths — to not think about that person or situation. And you’ll find that you’ve broken that thought cycle, and the hold your thoughts had on you.
Human interaction is imperfect. We each have our own beliefs, habits, mannerisms, triggers and insecurities, so it is inevitable that people will bring up emotions in us; even if they don’t intend to. But by using these practices to work through tricky thoughts and feelings, we can liberate ourselves from the relentless broken record in our minds, and instead strengthen our relationship with ourselves, as well as those around us.
Michelle Lavigne Author 