Do you ever struggle with a mental mess?
Negative thoughts, negative self-talk. Some people I know call it “head trash.”
Or, perhaps the thoughts aren’t negative, they’re just jumbled. You don’t feel like you can think clearly.
Whether its negative or jumbled or some other mental mess, I came across a process that can help. It comes from a book by Dr. Caroline Leaf Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess. The book is meaty, verbose, and has heavy neuroscience to it, but I think this concept is super valuable. The process goes like this:
It starts with awareness of negative thought, jumbled thoughts, or some version of head trash.
- Step 1: Gather the physical, emotional, and informational warning signs. How are you feeling? Bring awareness to the anxiety, angst, etc. Name it. Identify it. Call it out. Example: I feel overwhelmed right now.
- Step 2: Reflect on the physical, emotional, and informational warning signals. How did it come about and how did it effect you? Did anything particular happen to bring it on? Example: I feel overwhelmed because I read the news, saw a request from my boss, and realized I forgot to do something for my spouse.
- Step 3: Write to bring clarity. Get it all out on paper. Answer the who, what, when, where, why, how questions. In process.
- Step 4: Recheck the physical, emotional, and informational warning signals. You get to design your new healthy thought to replace your toxic thought. Was there anything that could have been done differently? Example: If I wouldn’t have checked email and read the news after 8pm, I might not feel so overwhelmed. I would be winding down on my day, reflecting with gratitude on what I accomplished instead of reactivating unfinished work and feeling obligated to do more to fix what’s wrong in the world.
- Step 5: Active Reach – rewire and bring about new thoughts. Example: Now, I won’t check email after 8pm and I won’t read that news channel that’s always negative. I will look for positive news.
She calls these The 5 Steps of the Neurocycle. You can look it up and see a diagram or better explanations than what I’ve put above. Here’s the book:
I’m not an expert at this, at least not yet. But I am getting better.
It’s an awareness tool.
Negative thoughts come to all of us. Our minds feel jumbled sometimes. If we aren’t careful, we will repeat these thought patterns over and over.
But we can break them!
Use this tool, think about how you think, and improve.
Omer Redden 