Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from March 15, 2014

Repetitive THoughts: Dealing with the Mind's Annoying Salespeople

Most of us, by the time we reach adult life, develop ways of relating to the obsessive thoughts that visit us; those inner voices that relentlessly detail bleak tales about the future, mistakes made in the past, inventories of what's missing from life. The brain’s set up to fret, and we all have to learn how to function in life without being dragged under by its constant jabbering. Despite these self-destructive tendencies, all we're after is a little peace of mind. While we may understand that certain types of thoughts cause us a lot of stress, it’s less obvious that the mind's tendency to jump around, from one inner narrative to the next, plays a large part in our suffering. The mind doesn't generally roam in search of peace. The brain's subsystems that activate our impulses tend to reward us for cogitation about issues that effect our survival, from whether or not we'll ever find a lasting relationship, to attempting to predict our unknowable financial f