I was able to stop my mind from running, at two in the morning, the other night. At the very least it’s a minor miracle.
I was obsessing over a passive aggressive man in a position to thwart me, right now. He’s thriving while I’m… up at night, ruminating. You can imagine how much this pisses me off, even though I know my rage feeds the problem. You hear the phrase, “living in your head, rent-free”. This is what was happening to me and it’s surely not the first time.
I always want to get away from people who has this effect on me, but sometimes you can’t. Like it’s your boss or something. This person is in a gatekeeper position. It’s virtually impossible to get around him and he knows it. He’s devious and got his ducks in a row.
Anyway, I was lying there thinking about this bastard and I decided I did not want to be someone who allows people to live in their head and wreck their sleep. Since I was up anyway, and sick with myself for being in this situation, I decided to grab the wheel of my mind and turn it away from this man, with all my might. I’m talking about, jerking the wheel and jumping the track, intent to never, ever look back at this bastard. To never ever, spend a single brain cell on him.
It worked! I jerked the wheel so hard, he went flying.
I’ve defeated my personal incubus. Now I just have to make sure he doesn’t reattach. I give this to Jupiter Uranus by the way. Freedom!
Do you have this problem? How do you deal with it?
Yes, unfortunately it is my Mother who is also my business partner oh…for 29 yrs now. Like a mind worm for me. I would not even have to wait to be lying in bed ~ lol! I would ruminate out loud around my house and finally learned to just yell “STOP”. That worked. There were also practices that I have mostly abandon and am pretty much back to square one – due to changes in her situation…so back to the mind worm for me. I am aware that it is my mind that needs control not her behavior; easier said than done. One thing I used to say that I believe Wayne Dyer said; What ever anyone else thinks about me is none of my business! Time to get back to my own business ; ) so my brain doesn’t have a party at my expense. Your posts and email news letter are appreciated! Your stories are always interesting and thought provoking. Thank you for all you do!
Thank you, Tracy. “Throw Mama From The Train”, comes to mind. 🙂
If only Danny and Billy would have been ‘available’ years ago ; o
Actually I did/do have this problem. I had a coworker who became a friend and she was always suspicious and paranoid of people at work. It did come from a real source, but it sort of ruled her reality and then spiraled from there.
And in being that I very Neptuney I absorbed all of her perspectives and mindset about people. I was with her for years. Finally it culminated (after being treated unfairly by her) I asked to leave working with her. I tried to keep it neutral by saying we clashed too much on how to run things.
But whenever I interact with her, the same old pattern pops up, but I do feel freer now that I no longer around her or receiving 10:30 novella long text messages about work when I’m trying to sleep or on the weekends.
Similiar to Tracy, your posts have been really paralleling my life and I actually feel less lonely/weird that I’m not only one who’s had this issue.
I have transit Uranus in the 8th.
mercury-saturn-pluto conjunction here. i cant never stop ruminating over something. but i have started to choose what i ruminate over. might as well be something productive!
What helps me is ‘writing is out’ instead of just thinking – manifesting it in words that are preserved and re-read. Or, if words fail, scribbling, doodling, painting, playing with colour and shapes to express what can’t be expressed in words. It it utterly satisfying to ‘manifest’ this turmoil somehow, even if its just a red blob on a canvas, sprinkled with black darts…
Distracting myself by cleaning, sorting and re-arranging living space also helps. The act of throwing everything out of a cupboard and deciding about every item whether to keep it or chuck it and where to put it really is a way of forcing the mind to focus on ‘what is’ and not draw up illusionary scenarios.
I had an epiphany once, to understand that I choose the direction of my train of thoughts and if I can imagine the worst, I can just as well imagine the best outcome. That is a real challenge but fun. Clients who complain and suffer, I ask what exactly they want and wish to happen – most don’t know. They have never spent a thought on an alternative way out, no wonder they are in a vicious circle. What also works well is to imagine yourself to be in a peaceful environment, say, a lush and sunny peaceful landscape. Imagine there is a river and you want to cross it, a black forest to traverse on the other side, a mountain to climb, a house beyond, your home. How do you go about it ? You can turn yourself into a bird or walk along the river for hours to hope for a bridge, it all depends on your imaginative capacity. Clients can’t believe how stuck they are and how easy the solution was, that their mind did not allow to appear.
Bottom line is to not allow your thoughts to lead you down the road to hell. They are tools, the mind is a toolbox, not who you are and not all you are.