Think less - here is why
I’m writing this because I felt like this principle should be in a book called “The Brain: an Owners Manual" . When I learned about this, the concept helped me immensely.
The idea is don't listen to your thoughts too much. Different therapy modalities have different ways of describing this, which shows how important the concept is.
A CBT therapist would tell you to treat your thoughts as ideas;
ACT therapy says ‘unhook’ from thoughts;
A Psychosynthesis therapist would say similar - don't ‘over identify’ with your thoughts;
Mindfulness practice says let your thoughts come and go.
But what does all that really mean?
Let me invite you to look up how many thoughts the human brain has in a day. Or take a wild guess, then check. It's one of my favourite facts.
Once you find out, ask yourself, are all these thoughts going to be useful?
If your answer is “yes, Ashley, every single one of my thoughts is useful”, let me ask you - have you ever pushed a pull door? Never? Have you ever wanted to yell something in a quiet public space? Just me? Have you ever had the most surprising thought at an inappropriate or inconvenient time? As most therapists would say, without even raising an eyebrow, great, you're a human and not everything that goes through your head is useful, these thoughts don’t mean much. Because, where do all your thoughts really take you? What do they prompt you to do?
Of course, this certainly is not to say all thoughts are useless. Thinking has brought us, humanity, a very long way. Thoughts are part of everything - from advancing technology, writing beautiful songs, to helping us survive - they do a lot for us. But they’re not ‘everything’, much like our feelings are important, but not the be all and end all, our behaviour is a big part of defining us, but we cannot define ourselves on all our behaviour alone. Thoughts are the same - they’re part of a kaleidoscope of what makes us up.
Although this title is think less, the idea is: don't get too invested in everything you think. You have a choice in paying attention to what you decide are useful thoughts, or thoughts that help you be the person you want to be.
If you’d like someone to take you through the process of treating thoughts as ideas, unhooking, dis-identifying, or letting your thoughts come and go; or, if your thoughts really trouble you and are taking you in a direction that you don’t want to go in, then you can speak to a qualified therapist who can help you practice this idea, in whatever way appeals to you.
