by Robert Leary
Oftentimes, a simple conversation can be all that’s needed to assuage powerfully hurtful emotions. Remember, your life is your choice. If you are indeed in a relationship where you are constantly doubting your partner, then it’s time to make a decision about what to do about it. Don’t just wallow in painful emotion for another ten years before deciding.
As you look at each item in your list, write down in another column next to it one positive thought that would effectively negate the negative emotion associated with that bad thought. For example, if you think obsessively about how well you are doing your job and worry that you’re not good enough, imagine yourself accomplishing a difficult task and your boss calling you to the office to congratulate you.
Perhaps it’s hard to concentrate on good things going on in the world because every news source you read only talks about the tragedies. Do some research and find out about something great that’s happened recently in the world. It may not have made the top headlines, but I assure you, there are always wonderful people in the world doing wonderful work. The interruption task in this example is to think of that good thing you found out each time your mind tries to go to the terrible thing that happened that week. It’s not about downplaying what’s going on in the world—it’s about improving your mental state so that you can get back to being a productive and fulfilled person. Having sinkholes in your mind sapping your positive energy isn’t good for anyone.
If you’re getting the hang of this pattern, go ahead and continue until you’ve completed two columns in your list. One column outlines the negative thought patterns, the adjacent covers one interrupting thought process to counteract it.
I wish I could say that just the act of writing these things down will dissipate your cluttered mind instantly, but it’s going to take a commitment from you to stay cognizant throughout the day so you can interrupt those negative or cluttering thoughts. Some of those thoughts may simply be cluttering your mind and not connected to a negative emotion. Your interruption tactic in this case is going to be to simply dismiss the thought when it enters the mind. Again, having removed sources of information overload should go a long way in getting rid of the simply extraneous thoughts.
Let me assure you, if you’ve managed to address all of the cluttering thoughts in your mind that you can think of, you’ve already come a very long way from where you were a few hours ago. It may be difficult at first, but as you practice this interruption of cluttering and negative thoughts each day, you will soon start to see the positive changes. It will get easier, and eventually, it will become automatic.
The brain is actually quite flexible. In recent years, scientific research has looked at the characteristic of the brain called neuroplasticity. When you replace harmful thoughts with positive thoughts, you are literally rewiring your brain! Take that, Tammy!
Now that you are beginning to move past the thoughts that had cluttered your mind for years, maybe even decades, it’s time to move on to something a lot more fun.
Finding Your True Passion, Reason, Purpose, or Goal
It’s been described in a lot of different ways with various terms—our reasons for living or the best part of living. The ideas or feelings or passions we wake up each day to pursue. Our purpose. Maybe just a hobby we get a lot of joy from practicing. However you want to describe it, now is the time to start thinking about how you want to refill that empty space, where the cluttered thoughts of your mind had once taken root. It’s time for another thought exercise.
Think back to when you were a child, or maybe a teenager. Was there something in your life that gave you joy as a kid? Was there a sport or a skill or a hobby that you spent most or all of your free time perfecting? Maybe you loved reading and simply read lots and lots of books over summer break each year. Did you enjoy swimming more than anything? Playing basketball or baseball? Riding a horse? Drawing and sketching? Maybe just getting together with friends and talking and laughing was what you looked forward to every day. Whatever it was, I want you to think back to a time when you were doing what you loved to do, if you can. What did it feel like to you? Do you remember the happiness it brought you?
A lot of adults live with this fallacy that the happiness we experience in childhood disappears forever once we become adults. This could not be further from the truth. Each one of us still has that child inside them, and it’s not a necessary part of life that we give that up once we hit a certain age. Many people have turned their childhood passions into a lucrative and fulfilling career. They get to relive the joy they experienced as a child every day, only now, they’re getting paid for it!
We don’t have to give up freedom of mind, playfulness, curiosity, passion, all of the most precious parts of being a child just because we grow older. I want you to remember those things that made you happy as a child because now it’s time to figure out how to manifest that joy in your life now. I’m not talking about trying to relive the past or turn into a child. What I’m saying is that it is possible for adults to experience joy and presence just like a child. It is just society and other cluttered minds telling us that there is no room for these things. Let’s prove them wrong!
Get out that paper again, maybe just flip over the sheet you were working from before.
It might be helpful to first make a list of the things you loved to do as a child. Maybe go find those old home movies or pictures from your dance recital or boy scout troop, etc. Take some time to really remember how much joy these things brought you.
Now think about what you like to do now. When was the last time you had enough free time to pursue something you loved to do? If it’s been a long time, it may take a little longer to think of what you like to do. Don’t get discouraged. You can always pick out something you’d like to learn about, maybe this will become your new hobby!
Write down a couple of things you’d like to really concentrate on as a strategy to introduce happiness and relaxation into your life. There may be lots and lots of things you enjoy doing, but it’s important not to overwhelm yourself. Most people are not going to be able to just drop their jobs and start pursuing all their passions full time (wouldn’t that be the life!), so let’s choose one or two things that you would like to start introducing into your life.
The last thing you want to do is turn your hobby into a chore, so when I say make some time to dedicate to your joy, what I mean is that you should try and prioritize doing something every day that is just for you. Maybe that is as simple as taking a nap! Making time for yourself is a great way to work together with that interruption technique we talked about earlier to reinvent the way your brain interprets your daily life. If you wake up every morning feeling that inner dread in your gut of having to get up and drive to work each day, then you are familiar with this phenomenon. It may seem like an impossible task now, but I promise, by the end of this book, you will have learned the important steps to take toward realizing a positive and fulfilled daily life.
If you’re someone who needs structure, like me, consider finding and taking a class related to something you’ve always wanted to learn or try. If it’s been a few years since you drew anything and you used to love drawing, find a class, maybe a free community class in your city, and you just may find some like-minded friends! You will find that the more you pursue personal betterment, the more it will naturally find you. Once you’ve learned to be aware of your thought processes, you will inevitably begin to notice things you hadn’t before, when there were too many thoughts in the way.
Chapter 5: Declutter Your Environment
Did you see this one coming (before you looked through the table of contents)? You may be wondering, what does a clean home have to do with my overthinking? Well, the answer is—a great deal!
Our environments actually affect us in profound ways that are not always obvious and immediately felt. An employee who must perform their tasks in an uncomfortable environment will inevitably underperform in comparison to another employee in a comfortable, clean environment.
/> Think about how you feel after a good deep clean of your home (hopefully you’ve done this at least once or twice!). Doesn’t it feel good to look around and see a clean home? It lifts the spirits and clears the mind, just like the physical space before you have been cleared. The clutter in our home environment can sometimes be directly proportional to the clutter in our minds. So, let’s get organized!
It’s important to keep in mind that this is not another one-size-fits-all solution. Every person has a different personality, style, and comfort level when it comes to home organization, and having a pristine home does not automatically guarantee a huge boost in productivity. The fact is, decluttering your home can only improve your mindset, so why not make the effort?
If you live with a partner, loved one, or roommate, you will want to discuss this plan before simply moving everything around or throwing things away! It should be a joint effort if it is a joint living space. There is a good chance that once you describe what you’d like to do, your living partners will be on board!
But first, let’s examine why it can be vital to reorganize and declutter one’s home.
We discussed in the last chapter about how people may try to avoid their overthinking with distracting or harmful behaviors. Well, hoarding and disorganization are good indications that there are some things that need to be straightened and organized in the mind. Our outward environment is often a reflection of our mind’s environment.
Look around your home or personal living space. How does the way it looks now make you feel? Does it make you feel sad? Overwhelmed? Sometimes our lack of organization can get out of hand when it starts to feel like we can’t control it. It’s always futile to try and address the external effects before dealing with the internal effects of overthinking, stress, anxiety, or depression. If you don’t address the thought process and bad habits, then even if you manage to clean up your space, there is a good chance it will start to look just like it did before within weeks or even days.
If you’ve seen the TV show Hoarders, then you know that much of a hoarder’s habit has to do with emotional attachment related to some kind of traumatic experience in their lives. If this is you and you’ve taken steps to improve your thought processes, then you are in a good position to begin addressing your personal living space.
Keep in mind, this process applies mostly to those of us who need assistance with something that has come to be something of an overwhelming task. You may have no problem keeping your home organized and clean, and that is excellent. For those of you who can be described this way, my advice for you would be to think about introducing another element into your home which cultivates relaxation and comfort. Perhaps a small plant you can give attention to throughout the week, or a plaque with a motivational quote you can place on the wall where you will see it every day. Any kind of small reminder you can give yourself each day as you progress on your journey can be a huge boost in confidence.
But if you are one of many who feels you have an enormous task on your hands, let’s start from the beginning.
Step one is to step back and accept that you are going to need to take one step at a time. Don’t look at the whole house and feel overwhelmed that you can never organize it all. You need to start with one room, maybe even the smallest room.
Look around this room and think about how this stuff got there and why it is there. Does it give you a twinge of discomfort or sadness just to look at your stuff? If so, then it definitely needs to be addressed.
You will need a few different boxes or bags because different items will be destined for different futures. It may be helpful to have someone there whom you trust to help you decide which is which. One box should be labeled donation and these are the things which are in reasonably good shape that you do not need. It’s not about whether or not you may find a use for it in the future. If it’s been sitting there for months and you haven’t touched it, odds are, you really don’t need it. Pass it on.
You will also need a bag for trash. Sometimes when we’ve developed negative emotion associated with attachment, it can feel painful to let go of things we’ve held on to for a long time. Think about your goals in decluttering your environment. Weigh the importance of this or that object against what you are trying to accomplish in your life. If the emotional reaction attached to that object fits into the hindrance category in your life journey, then you need to get rid of it. Maybe someone you know can keep it for you if you can’t bring yourself to trash or donate something. But holding onto it is only going to continue to hold you back.
A third, fourth, and maybe fifth box should be present for those things you are keeping and need to organize. Maybe there is something in this room that would make more sense in another room, etc. Before reorganizing these things, you will want to get everything up off the floor or out of the room so you can properly vacuum or sweep the floors after dusting the corners of the ceiling, ceiling fan, and blinds and wiping down the tables or other surfaces throughout the room. You will find it much more enjoyable to organize and redecorate the room once it is nice and clean!
This is the process you will follow for the rest of your space. If it starts to get overwhelming, take a break. You don’t have to do it all in one day. Keep reminding yourself of what a big and important step you are taking to improve your life.
Areas like the kitchen and bathroom may prove to be the most work. Remember to remove and organize items before trying to clean surfaces, as this will only frustrate you and lead to a suboptimal level of clean. If you can afford it, you may consider having a professional cleaning service come in to clean just a few of the most challenging rooms of the house. If they are really bad, don’t feel ashamed. Just make sure you’ve removed and trashed any items that you need to be out of the way. Many services will offer great introductory rates for new customers and one-time services.
There are many options for disposing the items you’ve recognized you don’t need or use. I mentioned donation already. You can find donation boxes at stores like Goodwill or Salvation Army. Maybe there is a church you can donate to if you have items like baby clothes or toys. Another option is to have a yard sale. Make a little cash for those items and rest assured that someone else is going to get some good use out of them.
Minimalism
I’d like to introduce a concept and lifestyle that has been rising in popularity in recent years. I’m not saying everyone reading this book should immediately get rid of 90% of their things and adopt this lifestyle, but I do think that discussing this topic a bit will open your mind to the possibilities and positive mindset that minimalism cultivates.
Minimalism is a pretty simple concept. Practitioners strip down to the bare essentials of life to convert to the most simple and sustainable lifestyle possible.
You may have heard of a documentary on Netflix released in 2015 called Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things directed by Matt D’Avella. It is a great introduction to the movement, and I highly recommend it if you are interested in learning more.
The belief systems and reasons for converting to a minimalist lifestyle vary from person to person. Many have certain beliefs and values in common, like taking care of their environments and lessening their own “ecological footprints” on the earth. Many practitioners are young adults who have “burned out” (sound familiar?) in our current economic rat race that is profession and career and simply turned to an extreme switch in focus after realizing they didn’t like the direction in which they were heading.
This realization is similar in a lot of ways to the realization you may have had earlier before picking up this book—that your current way of living with an overcrowded, overthinking mind is antithesis to what you want out of life, or to your goals, or to your happiness, or to all of these things combined. A switch to minimalism is a movement away from the overwhelmingly materialistic, chaotic, stressful lifestyle of nonstop gain. It is a dismissal of all these things that surround you which form a cage and addiction
for more. When we release things that have trapped us emotionally, like a hoarder who decides to make a change and get rid of unnecessary objects, there is a huge wave of freedom and clarity waiting for us to claim. Minimalism is perhaps the most straightforward analogy for how what’s going on inside our minds can match what’s going on in our immediate environments. It can almost be described as a spiritual ritual in which you dedicate yourself to sustaining the mindset of clarity and presence every day for the rest of your life. The simple lifestyle around you is a constant reminder of the mental changes that have taken place.
One of the most powerful addictions in modern society is, of course, money. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d say your initial list of overcrowding thoughts included financial concerns, probably somewhere near the top. And it makes sense, right? It is impossible to live without money today. And everything costs more and more as we get older and the more we acquire. Those purchases which were supposed to bring us convenience and freedom turn out to be money traps—like our vehicles. Some people feel they need the biggest SUV on the market to accommodate their urban lifestyles with no kids…ok, I may be getting off track. But you see where I’m going? This culture that necessitates the more, more, more mentality leads to nothing but emptiness, confusion, sadness, and an overwhelmed mind influenced by everyone trying to tell us what we need. If we just had the latest version of iPhone, all of our problems would just disappear! If I changed my hair and got highlights, I would feel prettier and life would be easier! If I can get that job and work more hours, I will be richer and happier! The list could go on forever.