28 Jan 2016

How to be less caught-up in your own head

 

“I think too much”, the mind thinks to itself.

“I feel like I’m caught up in my head all the time”, a student will often say to me at our first appointment.

For many people, this is a revelation. That they are in their head too much.

So they try to fix being in their head too much.

 

Desirable

 

It’s desirable to not be caught up in the head too much.

When you are caught up in the head too much, you’re not in the present moment.

When you’re caught up in the head too much, you …

1-  Worry about what you are going to do with your life.

2 – Think about how this present moment could be better.  

Thinking about those two things too much, makes you …

1 – Anxious.
2 – Worried.
3 – Feel worthless.

Being caught up in the head too much is not desirable.

 

The Cure

 

So you try to escape being caught up in the head too much.

You try drugs, movies, meditation, work. You try everything. 

But you can’t escape being caught up in your own head. 

The cure is not more escape. 

Escape is what got you in this mess in the first place.

 

Why am I caught-up in the head too much? 

 

An elderly man at a weekend workshop describes himself as, “living from the neck up.”

Below the neck is the body. And in our body we feel emotions.

A lot of those emotions hurt. So we escape those emotions by either …

1 – thinking about a solution to those uncomfortable emotions.
2 – trying not to think about uncomfortable emotions.

Both of these options lead to a life spent “living from the neck up.”

 

1 – Thinking about a solution to uncomfortable emotions

 

When we feel uncomfortable emotions we attempt to solve them with thought.

Although the thinking can be useful, it can often be misled.

You attempt to solve the problem of uncomfortable emotions with many thoughts about a solution.

This is difficult because 

to find a correct solution to something, you must understand the problem.

 

The result is that you think a lot, yet never find a solution.

 

You live above your neck, because you’re scared to go below it.

The solution lies in understanding the problem, not thinking about more possible solutions.

 

The Cure 2

 

Uncomfortable emotions aren’t something to be cured, like cold or hunger.

They are something to be experienced and sometimes expressed, as they are, with interested observance. 

This will lead to understanding your emotions better. 

Which will lead to less looking for a solution.

Which will lead to less aimless, repetitive, “I’m a problem”, solution thinking

Which will lead to fewer misled solutions, like “There’s something wrong with me” or “There’s something wrong with everyone else” or “If only I had this”, and so on.

All this will lead to less being in your head.

And more being in the moment.

 

 

Screen Shot 2016 01 28 at 1 13 06 pm

 

 

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