Are Your Thoughts Driving You Mad?

Thoughts and Thinking!

Your mind is forever on the go, you may be chatting, driving, busy working or playing, and whatever you are doing you will always be thinking. Even when in sleep, your mind is busy dreaming.  You can be in conversation with someone and your mind is racing away on other subjects, when you are listening to someone, you are mostly preparing your reply, even during meditation you have to keep pulling on the reins of your thoughts to ensure you quieten your mind.

If you consider that your thoughts pretty much run your life, then you come to realise the importance of your thoughts and thinking.

We all have different moods at different times, but where does a mood begin? You may think that if someone upsets you and you fall into a bad mood, that the perpetrator of the bad mood is that other person. Or if you are short of money then that is the reason for your bad mood, or if you are having relationship problems then that is the cause of the bad mood.

The truth is that it is the thoughts surrounding all of the above issues that are the cause of the mood, not the actual issue itself.   So your thoughts create your mood.  Powerful stuff!  

You see, if someone does or says something that you don’t like, there is nothing you can do about it.  You cannot undo it, what anyone else does or says is outside of your control.  However, you are in control of you and your thoughts, and you can change your thinking.  So the next time someone does or says something that you don’t like, ask yourself “Am I going to let this bother me or am I simply going to let this go”? You can either accept it and move on or fight it and let it take over, in which case you have lost your power.

This is the choice you have and only you can make.   If you choose not to ‘let it go’ then what happens? What happens is your self-talk runs riot, you get angry, you want revenge and you blow it all out of context until it starts to eat you up. The other person is not doing this, it is your thoughts doing this, and therefore you are doing this to yourself.

If you are short of money, you can either sit and worry about why this is happening to you or you can let these thoughts go and concentrate on fixing it, so instead ask yourself “How can I change this? “What do I need to do to improve this situation”? “What can I cut back on, how can I reduce my out-goings, and what can I do to prevent this happening again”? The difference here is replacing ‘why’ with ‘how’, so instead of thinking why is this happening to me, think now how can I fix this.

If you are in a relationship and your partner does or says something that upsets you, it can become much bigger than it need be depending on how you think about it. If you start to blow it up with your self-talk it can easily become a much bigger issue.  All the negative thoughts build up and you can go from feeling love to feeling hate, in a very short time. When you finally sit down and talk about it together you realise that actually it is not that big a problem, at all. 

I know people that have been late for work due to traffic and by the time they get to work they are in a bad mood and stay that way all day.  Did the traffic cause this mood? No, it was their thinking about the situation that caused the mood. You can get angry and impatient and build up a sweat due to traffic, but where does this get you? There is nothing you can do about it, therefore just accept that it is out of your control and just go with it. This way when you arrive at work you explain the problem for your lateness was out of your control and you put it behind you.

So you see, it is your thoughts that cause your moods. Over thinking and negative thoughts can sabotage your life, but only if you allow it.

The other day I was sitting in traffic, I was listening to music and looking around and not paying attention to the hold up, when I noticed a mother rushing along, pushing an empty pushchair, and holding her little toddler’s hand.  In fact she was pretty much pulling the child along.  I looked at the mothers face, and could see she was in a rush and looked rather stressed. I then looked at the child’s face, and this brought a smile to my face. Whilst being pulled along the little toddler was muttering away and totally oblivious to being pulled along by Mummy. She was as happy as anything just watching her little feet take step after step, you could almost see that she was feeling each foot hit the floor, then she reached out to touch a flower, whilst still being pulled along, then she looked across at a barking dog pointing and muttering and all the while her mother was still rushing her along. The child, like all young children, was totally in the moment, enjoying everything around her, she was happy, she didn`t care about yesterday or tomorrow.  Children live in the now and don’t have worrying thoughts about yesterday or tomorrow and that is why children do not have moods. 

Don`t worry or get upset about what is out of your control, don’t concern yourself with what may be and what has been.  You can’t stop thoughts coming into your head, but you can take control of those thoughts. Instead of allowing damaging negative thoughts to reduce you to unhappiness, depression, anxiety etc., simply take a step back, consider your mood and then consider the thoughts that created the mood and then either let those thoughts go and move on or replace those negative thoughts with  positive thoughts.

Even when something traumatic happens, a death of a loved one or you have a serious accident, it is your thinking that will result in how well you cope with the event.  Of course you will feel relevant emotions, but it is the self-talk that will either drag you down into a big black hole or help you to accept and in time move forward.

You are in control of your thoughts; your thoughts create your emotions.

Once you realise the power you hold within, no one will ever have power over you again!