Who laid a stake in your mental real estate?

On Sunday I awoke with a certain person occupying way too much of my mental real estate. We had had a relatively tough exchange and I was starting to move into that all too familiar place of what I call rotational thinking ; looping thoughts that take on a life of their own.

A gift of awareness is that I quickly recognized this as unproductive thinking and as stressful. A gift of conscious living, which is how I choose to live, is that I gave some thought to what I would rather think and I gave that subject matter supremacy in my mental landscape. I chose to think about the podcast I am being interviewed for in a few days time. Every time this other person dared enter my precious mental domain I would consciously switch my thinking to thinking about the upcoming Unlearning Podcast and my dear friend Zanele, the host; I thought about potential questions I would be asked and I created answers in reply. I gave my mind something else to busy itself with and put a far more productive stake in my mental real estate. In a sense I have been practicing unlearning default thinking patterns. Giving thought to our own thinking even has a name; metacognition. This is the act of thinking about thinking. We get to bear witness to our own lives and then reclaim agency by taking action based on our self-observation.

Research tells us we have up to 60 000 thoughts a day and that up to 75% of these are negative and almost 95% of them are repetitive. Wow! There is so much science on thinking but this isn’t a scientific paper this is a blog about your freedom of choice and the invitation to get really, really proprietal about who or what takes up residence in the landscape of your mind. It’s your mental real estate so you get to control who places a stake in the ground. Now understand this; our brains are designed above all else, to keep us safe. So, if there is something going on in your world that is a threat to your mental, physical, emotional, social or spiritual wellbeing your brain will play it out, turn it over and inside out and what starts as a noble effort to protect you can quickly become over-thinking or stuck, rotational thinking. It’s up to the conscious part of us to flip unproductive thinking back to productive thinking. It takes practice but what a gift to give ourselves.

There is a lot to worry about in life – so this sounds simple, but it is not easy. It is, though, a skill set that is undervalued. Managing our thinking is a truly empowering and liberating thing to learn to do.

Here are some tips to drive a wedge in the thinking loops:

‘Catch’ yourself in rotational thinking
Have a place where you write down the thinking-loop subject matter and pull it out of your head and onto paper
Likewise have a person (friend, coach, therapist) where you can verbally discharge the thinking loops
Put it in your diary: a constructive time to consciously think about this issue if it requires thought so you can tell you brain it’s ok – you’ll think about this at 4pm today!
Have lovely topics to rather think about ready at hand when that rotational thinking comes at 2am! For example I re-landscape my garden in my head as a healthy replacement thought or I write articles (like this one) in my head rather than travel on that unhealthy merry go round of random unconstructive thinking.

When we look at the Enneagram we can also more deeply understand thinking patterns of the various Enneagram types as knowing our type can enable a more targeted approach to thinking. For instance, a lot of Enneagram Type 1 thinking is the voice of the inner critic. I have coached people to name their inner critic in order to separate out this voice from their own and then literally to dialogue with this voice to shush it and place it back in its box. Type 1 thinking becomes healthier when it is replaced with a compassionate and understanding gentle voice. Type 2 thinking is often about other people; worrying about them and wondering how they can serve them. Sometimes this flips the entirely opposite ways when 2’s have given so much that their thinking becomes skewed to themselves and their overwhelm. So Type 2 thinking is more constructive when it is about you and me and what is good for all of us. Type 3 thinking can be dominated by the win and looking for the gap, the angle, the edge. There is a drivenness in the thinking that can exhaust the Type 3 and this looping of thought can be balanced out by thinking about being rather than only thinking about doing. Type 4’s can engage in brooding and wallowing and be subject to feeling-thinking-feeling loops and can really benefit from replacing this with their natural ability for creative thinking in a far more constructive way. Type 5’s need to deeply understand everyone and everything around them so their mental chatter is intense and analytical, seeking to ‘get’ things a deep level so Type 5’s can benefit from recognizing this and replacing the analyses with a deep appreciation of what is beautiful and good around them. Type 6’s can think in massive loops as fear and worry is very familiar to them so overthinking is a Type 6 trait and can best have a wedge driven in it by a Type 6 expressing this, asking for support and simply acknowledging this tendency to quieten it down and reduce the looping. Type 7 thinking can be a little chaotic and frenetic and messy at times and when Type 7’s come to be aware of this they can access their 5 energy and become more orderly and calm in their thinking. Type 8 thinking is dominated by strategy and while this is useful at times it can also be all consuming and types 8’s can benefit from settling their minds through mindfulness practices and acts like journalling and therapy or just a good chat with a good friend to really get their strategy laid out so that their minds can settle. Type 9 thinking can be a little lonely and ‘in their own world’ and 9 will do well to reach out to someone and share their thoughts rather than be consumed by them. Want to know more about your patterns according to your Enneagram Type? I will happily journey this with you just make contact here.

We are all so different from one another but we share some degree of looping thoughts, many of them negative and unproductive. Instead of thinking happening to us, let us happen to our thinking. Let’s get into the drivers seat of our minds and harness our thinking well. If you would like a coach to help you manage your thinking for the better you can fine me here colleen@colleenwilson.co