Your Brain Has Terrible Ideas. Stop Treating Them Like Facts.

My therapist always asks me to challenge my thoughts. Not because having them is the problem, but because letting them consume me is. 

Which sounds simple enough, until you realize how little control you actually have over what shows up in your head. The other day I caught myself doing something that, in hindsight, is completely normal. I had a thought (shocking!), then another. Then another. Instead of letting them pass, I did what I always seem to do: I got swallowed by them. Questioning everything until your existence becomes nothing more than an observation made by someone you’ve completely disconnected from. No answer actually ended the loop; each one just asked another question. By the end of it, I had spent 30 minutes in a conversation I never consciously agreed to have.

I realized I couldn't control the arrival of these thoughts, but I could control what happened once they got there, or at least try to, which is easier said than done. Why had I given them so much power in the first place?

If a stranger knocked on your front door every six minutes, you wouldn’t invite them in. If they came in anyway, you’d probably keep trying to get them out. But shutting the door on every thought isn’t the answer either. Some of them are worth listening to. The question is how much access you give them once they’re there.

Thoughts don't exactly stay contained in your head. They bleed into how you feel, what you believe and, eventually, what you do. (CBT peeps will love this).

Thoughts can be irrational, feelings can be overwhelming, actions have consequences. If I only follow my thoughts, I overanalyze, if I only follow my emotions, I become reactive; if I only focus on my actions, I risk ignoring what’s happening inside me altogether. The goal isn’t choosing one over the others; thoughts offer possibilities, feelings reveal what matters, and actions are what actually change your life.

The latter two are easier to identify, but a thought… what is it, actually? What have I been listening to all these years?

Philosophically, it’s kind of slippery: an idea that models the world. Religiously, according to Collins Dictionary, it’s a moral seed that dictates the soul’s purity (ouch). Biologically, it’s neurons firing and chemicals moving. Regardless, your brain does what healthy brains have always done: it produces thoughts, thousands of them. Most even disappear before you even notice they exist. So why do some of the ones we notice make us feel heavy? Probably because we’ve confused attention with access.

Access is about influence. A thought can have your attention without getting your belief. It can have your attention without getting your identity. It can have your attention without changing your actions, and to be fair, if that stranger somehow made it inside your house after knocking long enough, pretending they aren't there won't help either. You’d probably ask who they are, why they’re here, whether they’re lost, dangerous, or just knocking on the wrong door.

Thoughts aren’t so different. More often than not, it isn’t another thought waiting underneath. It’s fear, anger, grief, insecurity, love. Suddenly, the initial thought isn’t the most interesting part anymore. What if it was simply a loving warning that something needs to change? The relationship we've built with our thinking sets the tone here. 

Here is where we get it wrong. We spend so much time figuring out how to act based on our thoughts, and not enough asking what they’re pointing to. Some need compassion, some need action, and some probably just need to be noticed, and they’re gone! The healthiest minds aren’t the ones producing the least thoughts; they’re the ones that know which thoughts deserve what kind of attention.

I think my problem is that I’ve been treating unconscious attention as proof of importance. It feels as though I’m holding onto thoughts like they’re emotional evidence; ammunition. But ammunition is only useful if you expect a battle. What if I’ve accidentally trained my mind to believe every thought is an emergency? What if I think too highly of my own thinking to consider that some of it might just be… insignificant?? 

Your brain is incredibly good at learning; it’s a muscle in that sense. The imbalance happens when repetition quietly becomes belief. Whatever repeatedly earns your attention becomes important. Every time you give a thought unrestricted access to you, your brain quietly learns that’s the kind of thing worth repeating. Not because it’s trying to sabotage you. Because that’s literally its job: it solves, predicts, protects. It THINKS it’s protecting you. Think of Instagram’s algorithm, except it’s your nervous system. Remember that your brain is in your body. Your body is not in your brain. Considering its malleability, teach it to love the space it’s in. 

If I were to simplify thoughts into something I could actually try to understand, I’d separate what creates them from what I can actually control:

Thoughts = Nature + Nurture | Response = Agency

I’ve associated thoughts with my identity. Who I think is who I am. But it’s not. But if it’s not… then what am I? Sometimes I wonder what exists underneath all the thinking. Silence? Freedom? Nothing? I think that’s why thinking is so seductive. It keeps us from having to find out, just until we’re ready.

---

Photo ©