At Capacity

The thought that my mind is overcrowded has occurred to me quite a few times. I suppose thinking about such things just contributes to the clutter! Ha!

My last post reminded me of one such realization, not just that my mind was crowded with thoughts, but more specifically, Thought-People.

The Thought-People in my head are based on existing people in my life. Mental energy is funneled into worries, conjectures, and imagined feelings about the Thought-People that fleshes them out into their own entities. While Thought-People are copies of people in my real life they often go on to live a full life of their own in my mind.

If you've ever heard of worry dolls it's a similar concept except twisted into a dysfunction. Instead of depositing my worries upon a symbolic doll and having the doll bear the stresses for me, Thought-People hang around. Skulking about garnering more attention, gathering more worries, and instead of minimizing my stress, expanding it through extrapolation and poorly utilized imagination.

The end result is a head full of hitchhiking characters taking up head space and energy. Lately it feels like a crowd of pigeons perched under the eaves of a building, splotching the sidewalks with droppings and generally causing uneasiness for any passerby aware of their presence. Makes my daily mental commuting uncomfortable. And sticky.

Don't get me wrong, Thought-People can be useful. You may utilize these complex representations when wondering how people will react to what you say or do, like a relevant "pretend time" in you mind. But Thought-People become an issue when they overstay their welcome and begin to generate anxiety, obsessive thoughts, guilt, or other stress.

So I'm working on some crowd control. My mind is built for some powerful processing but a little too much space in my brain has been overtaken by Thought-People. Here's some of my eviction techniques:

VISUALIZATION-When I feel overwhelmed by Thought-People I like to take stock of my surroundings. Most of the time, I'm alone or it's me and the hubby, but with the Thought-People it sure feels more crowded! The next step is imagining the Thought-People in my mind and determine who is following me around and intruding on my life. Than I release them back to their parents (the real life people that they're based on) wherever they may be scattered across the world. Most often I find myself worrying about my family and I have to remind myself that they aren't actually present; I'm just wasting mental energy worrying when I could be enjoying myself. Reminding myself how far away they are from me physically helps me distance myself mentally when I'm dwelling and fretting.

MINDFULNESS-Sometimes I can rein in runaway thoughts with mindfulness which involves focusing on the here and now instead of letting my mind whirl worries over and over. Sometimes it helps to run my hands and arms under cold water or play with the pets to help ground me and get out of my own head.

DISTRACTION-Sometimes I just don't have the energy or focus to utilize the former techniques or I'm bored, so I opt for distraction. My favorite distractions are puzzles, baking, long drives to nowhere in particular, books, walks, and goofy TV shows like "The Golden Girls" or "Last Man Standing." Oh, and sex can be great too-just be careful you don't exclusively have distraction sex, that's a quick way to relationship dissatisfaction!

GRATITUDE-I'm not grateful for the extra stress Thought-People cause me but I am grateful for the intuition and imagination and pure brainpower that contributes to their existence. Sometimes the best way to calm a chaotic mind is thanking myself for the good work and reassuring myself that I'm safe and  that I don't need to be worrying about ---insert worry here---. A sort of "thank you, come again-but not too soon" dismissal. "Kill 'em with kindness" isn't a saying for nothing!

It's wonderful to share our lives with people but I don't like walking about feeling like a tour bus full of freeloaders! My mind is mine and just like my time I get to decide how to spend my resources, whether that be cherished neurons or minutes!

I guess this is what growing up is all about-budgets, boundaries, and blazing my own trail.