Dear Reader,
I came across the following quote recently: “Nothing in this world will torment you as much as your own thoughts.” This just made me realize once again – that as a typical over-thinker – I am my own worst enemy!
This tendency already started in my childhood. Due to my hearing disability, I didn’t have many friends. I can remember how I always used to – and even now – tend to analyse everything.
I tried to make friends – joining the little groups on the playground – just to suddenly find myself all alone! “Where did everybody disappeared to?”, I would wonder. “Did I say something wrong”. Why doesn’t anybody like me. And from there it will be just a downward spiral, with my mind churning endlessly, accomplishing nothing.
This inner conversation kept on repeating itself through most of my life as this scenario played out repeatedly. It doesn’t matter how many times I tried – whenever I join a group and try to make friends, I always ended up finding myself all alone.
As you can imagine, this didn’t help my confidence or self-esteem very much, and my internal dialogue made it so much worse!
And so, as the years passed, I become a loner very much, living increasingly in my own inner world.
Since my thoughts were in no way objective, it caused a downward spiral of feeling rejected and not being good enough. I never for a moment considered that I might have interpreted other people’s actions incorrectly!
The fact that I struggled to talk about my thoughts and feelings, didn’t help much neither – robbing me of the possibility that someone could put things for me in a different perspective!
And so my thoughts became my constant companion. I’m always having these endless discussions with myself. Constantly trying to figure out this complicated thing we called life and all the mysteries it entails.
After being retrenched at age 49, this becomes far worse! My mind just seems to never switch off, spinning in an endless circle of worrying and what if’s! Night-time is the worse. When everyone else is peacefully asleep, my thoughts just keep on churning, robbing me of sleep.
I guess over-thinking is part of my personality, but I can just hope that somehow I will manage to figure out a way to start controlling my thoughts, reigning in the negative and focusing more on the positive.
What does seem to help me calm my mind is by keeping busy – reading, Bible study and of course – heading out on my bike for a long ride. It just seems as if the repetitive motion helps to calm my mind.
And you, dear reader? Do you also find that you struggle to control your thoughts? Do you manage to ignore the negative and focus more on the positive? Please share with us the things that work for you to win the battle for your mind?
Thanks for Reading!
Susan
Life Letters 