Stop Addictive Thinking

“What consumes your mind, controls your life.”

You can stop habitual useless thinking.

Do you find it difficult to stop thinking? Your chatty mind rarely lets up? You’re not alone.

Many people spend a lot of time ruminating over the same negative thoughts. We play them over and over and over in our minds.

We agonize over what we should or shouldn’t have said, did or didn’t do. We obsess over things we can’t control. We worry about our past and dwell on worst-case scenarios for the future.

You can stop obsessive thinking. Here’s how.

You take back control when you consciously observe your thoughts.

Your mind is a tool. It’s intended use is to assist your soul, not control you. Your mind is supposed to support you, not sabotage.

Many people believe they can’t control their mind. That’s because they believe their mind when it tells them they can’t stop thinking. Guess again. Your mind is lying to you. It does that. Often.

You can control your thoughts. It’s a skill that you develop. It takes practice. If your internal narrator is perpetually chatting away, it’s because you haven’t trained it.

The first step to stop useless thinking is to gain awareness. Make the unconscious thinking conscious. You do that by witnessing the mind. Rather than operating on autopilot and being dragged in emotionally, observe your mind. Watch it. It’s quite clever how it takes over and abuses you.

Like breathing, random thoughts instinctively occur.

Observe it like an impartial bystander. No judging. Simply observing.

When you consciously observe your thoughts, you gain control. Pause, take a step back, observe your thoughts without judgment or the need to fix them.

The more of a detached observer to your thinking, the less impact they have on you. It’s not the thoughts themselves that cause your suffering. It’s your emotional attachment to those thoughts.

When you withdraw attention from your thoughts, they lose their power.

You take back your power when you become mindful that you are obsessively thinking. Noticing these random, unfocused thoughts stops their flow—even if it’s for a few seconds.

Busy mind chatter cannot gain control if you observe it. Either you are the observer of your thoughts or you are being controlled by your thoughts. Choose whether you will be the observer or the thinker.

The only power your mind has is what you give it. If you withdraw attention from your mind’s thinking, it has no power over you. None.

You unconsciously empower your mind by believing whatever it tells you.

Stop identifying with your thoughts. It’s just a thought.

Challenge what your mind is feeding you. Your conditioned ego is replete with distortions, misperceptions, identities and lies. You suffer when you believe the negativity your mind is feeding you. It has no power over you when you don’t believe it.

The more repetitive your thoughts, the more they stick.

The more unconscious and repetitive your negative thoughts are, the more power and control they gain over you. You become empowered when you bring your mind back to the present moment. Train it to stay present, not off wandering everywhere.

Start right now. Note the subtle colors of the screen you are reading from.

Feel the keyboard beneath your fingers or the phone in your hand.

Listen to sounds in the distance.

Be present. As often as you can. That is how you learn to control your powerful mind and use it as the tool it was always meant to be.