There is always talk around the country and the world about addictive behaviors, usually referring to a substance. However, one of the biggest addictions has never actually been brought up. You dont hear about it on the news or read it anywhere because the people who are addicted to it don't know it. It is the addiction to thinking. It is actually addictive. You can't stop thinking like you can't stop drinking and can't stop smoking.
It's an addiction because it's like a drug, but just has been around so long and it's a pseudo sense of self. There is a great reluctance on the part of people to let go of thinking which is equated with the state of sleep. Don't try to understand more than what's there-there isn't that much to understand. The main thing about it is presence because presence is the space of no thought. Presence can be there in the background even if thinking is happening and still not be completely involved in the thinking. Thinking loses the ability to create havoc in your life and confuse you.
Your choice then is not to understand more or bring some intellectual analysis to the practice, but to practice the state of not thinking which can be arrived at as various ways -don't think about it, just do it, becoming aware of the present moment and accept it as it is slows down the overactive mind.
A lot of the overactivity of the mind is an attempt to get away from the isness and the simplicity of the present moment. To become more aware of the present, make little notes and pointers to yourself in your home or in your car because there are different entry points into the present moment. Present moment awareness means the thinking subsides. It may not disappear completely, but something else arises that is primary-we call it presence or awareness.
But how do you become conscious of the present moment? After a while you can actually sense the presence of the present so to speak and directly-there it is. Helpful things are sense perceptions. They take you out of thinking IF you are not judging the sense perceptions (enabling/naming). Wherever you are, anywhere, look around and practice sense perceptions without this compulsive interference with naming what you are perceiving. See what it means to perceive without concepts or words.
Let's use right now as an example. Between NOW.......and.........NOW, were you thinking? What I am telling you now is secondary. What is primary is the underlying state of consciousness, presence. A sign that it is working is while you listen there's no thought, just an alert presence. If your mind wanders, you can acknowledge the thought, but come back to presence. So your priority is no longer to follow the thought to wherever it takes you.
The thought has a magnetic pull. It wants more of your consciousness, it wants to grow so it wants more attention. In suddle ways it tries to get your attention. It might even use a bodily feeling to distract you. You follow it, the presence is gone and you are gone. If you're not careful and don't use the mechanism, not so much an intellectual understanding, but a simple realization that this is what the mind does-it tries to pull you in. Once you know that, you can allow thought to arise without following it because it only wants to go to a bigger and bigger thought. Sometimes you can follow a thought and wake up twenty minutes later and it started with a small thought and ended up with you thinking how dreadful your life is.
I wish all of you love and happiness, you beautiful beings!π
Love,
Kristan π
OMG I overthink things constantly! It's not something that I particularly like doing and I've never really thought of it as an addiction until now. It really does take away from my happiness and ability to be present in the moment and enjoy the simple things in life.
Thanks for yet another insightful post @kristyyd :)
You're welcome stranger π Thank you ! See you around π
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This is a good post, I would say that addiction is generally a movement to get away from feeling an emotion which arises as a felt sensation or contraction in the body and is perceived as uncomfortable, to avoid feeling this "pain" we focus more intensely on our thoughts which just fuels the whole situation and can lead to seeking external "fixes" to medicate the felt sensation in the body, learning to empty the mind and bring awareness gently into the sensation and allowing it fully really helps, it's interesting to notice the movements of the mind and the body. You don't hear about this on the news because the content of the news is designed to jack up the nervous system and keep our mind and body in a state of high alert. I'm really big on the somatic aspect of it all, I keep meaning to read a book suggested by a friend called "the body keeps the score" by Bessel van der Kolk...apparently it really interesting!!
Perfect comment-couldn't have said it better! π
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STOPThis was a good read.
And yes, normally people around us constantly keep telling us not to 'overthink'.. I don't even know what that means to be honest! To me, our thinking becomes addictive from the moment we start.. there is nothing as under/over thinking. And this highly competitive world we live in today, it's all about survival. It's about making ends meet 24/7. Too many opportunity costs being involved in almost all our actions. In order to cope up with all that, we constantly think about our present and future decisions, the impact those decisions will have on our lives and the ones associated with us (family, friends, etc.).
While thinking about all the pros and cons, what we fail to realize is the fact that we need to maintain a fine equilibrium between what needs to be thought about and what actually need to be done right away! Almost all of us expect a smooth and steady atmosphere, however, in the words of Franklin Roosevelt , "A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor" - Similarly, we should understand that merely thinking about something, at times investing more effort thinking about it than the effort we put into executing it, will yield us no results whatsoever.
Think, yes... but know the difference between investing time in rational and logical analysis, and, wasting time on fearful thoughts about the outcome of something and all that hesitation inside your head.
π great comment thank you π
My pleasure! :)
I'd say overthinking is also a method of procrastination. There have been so many times I have overthought something to come back to the present and realise that the time I had alloted for that task has past.
Great post!β€
Exactly. Like when we were kids we used to day dream and ten minutes later you snap back into it like wow where was I ? π Thank you!
Love it!
Thank you π
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