Can your inner dialogue be pretty negative? Do you find your thoughts looping endlessly on the same track?
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it” – Eckhart Tolle
Spring and summer are a good time to declutter. Many of us take the opportunity to clean out our closets and get rid of what we don’t need. We may also go on a cleanse or juice fast to flush out our intestines.
But what about detoxing our minds? Our thoughts can be pretty toxic – towards ourselves, others, or life in general. While negative or ruminative thinking often has a protective intention – to scan for danger and motivate us to survive if not succeed – the actual result is that we feel stuck and overwhelmed. Our thoughts can greatly contribute to (and even cause) our suffering. Unless we have an intentional practice such as meditation (and even if we do), our thoughts often run the show – unchecked.
Here are some indicators you might need a thought detox:
Inner Critic: You have a negative internal narrative that doesn’t let you off the hook. Feelings of being a fraud (i.e. the Imposter Syndrome), feelings of inadequacy, not being enough, feeling stupid or ugly, the thought “I suck” are all examples of an active inner critic.
Judgment: You catch yourself habitually judging others and yourself. This is often linked to expectations and ideals of how we think things should we.
Resistance to what is: Similarly, you are often at war with the present moment, wishing things were different than how they actually are.
Anxiety/depression: You are prone to anxious, ruminative thoughts. Alternatively (or concurrently), you tend towards depression.
Negativity bias: You are often focused on what is wrong and what you don’t have.
Difficulty Sleeping: You struggle with sleeping enough – it might be hard to get to sleep, stay asleep or feel rested. While there may be a number of reasons for disturbed sleep that are not linked to our thoughts, the latter are often a contributing factor.
Future/past focus: You spend a lot of energy worrying about or planning for the future. Or you might cling to past stories and grievances.
If you identified with some or many of the above, you are not alone. Many of the indicators listed above were strategies we developed (or inherited) in order to better our lot and/or feel safe. However, it is possible to upgrade those strategies in order to feel lighter and more spacious.
The following are 7 tips for detoxing your thoughts:
1. Notice your thoughts
The first step is always awareness. Which of the above indicators did you identify with? You might want to keep a thought journal for a week. What triggers negative or ruminative thinking for you? What kinds of thoughts do you tend to have (i.e. self-critical, judgmental of others, anxious about the future, ruminating over the past…)?
2. Notice the impact
One you start tracking your thought patterns, notice the impact on you. How do you feel when you have those thoughts? What happens in your body – do certain parts contract, or do you leave your body? How do you think you might feel if you didn’t have the thought.
3. Get curious
Now that you have a sense of your pattern and its impact, I invite you to get curious. What are the thoughts trying to achieve for you? Are they trying to protect you from failure? Do they want to motivate you to be better? Are they trying to justify what you are feeling? Do they want to prevent you from feeling vulnerable and exposed?
What is the emotion behind the thoughts? Is there fear? Sadness? Anger? Hopelessness?
4. Thank the thoughts
Once you’ve identified what the thoughts are trying to achieve for you, send them gratitude for their intention. If it feels accessible/appropriate, you can also send gratitude to whatever younger version of you developed this pattern in order to feel a little safer.
5. Hit the pause button
Ask yourself, are the thoughts really achieving the intention they have for you? Do you feel more motivated to work harder after having the thought “I suck” (or whatever thought you had)? And if they aren’t, is there a different way you could be meeting those needs?
Next time you notice yourself going down the ruminative thinking rabbit hole, I invite you to pause. Thank the thought for its intention. And return to your body and your breath.
6. Develop a gratitude practice
Gratitude has almost become a buzzword, but it is a great antidote to the negativity bias. I invite you to keep a daily gratitude/appreciation/acknowledgment journal where you track everything you are grateful for. Be sure to write down self-acknowledgements. Doing this last thing before going to sleep can help quiet the part of the brain that often wakes up chewing on what it thinks needs fixing from the previous day.
7. Return to the present moment
Mindfulness is like gratitude, but it’s also a very helpful practice for learning to gain a little bit of distance from our mind’s ceaseless chatter. Practices which foster mindfulness – which include yoga, meditation, conscious walking, qi gong and so on – are great ways to begin to retrain the neural networks.
