Sometimes my thoughts are overwhelming, especially when they’re negative. The unceasing torrent of thought can surround me and make me feel like I’m drowning. This doesn’t happen all the time or even as much as it used to, but it still happens every so often. In situations of overwhelming thought, it’s easy for me to get stuck on a particular thought or a particular kind of thought. Maybe I’ll keep replaying a painful moment or a series of painful moments. The negativity builds upon itself and causes increasingly greater suffering in the process. When this happens, I find it helpful to zoom out.
Instead of remaining fixated on one moment, I’ll take a look at the bigger picture: what I’m doing with the rest of my week, something that’s going on in another part of the world, my life plans, etc. That reminds me that this moment is only one of many in my life and that it, like all the others, will pass; instead of remaining my sole focus, it becomes just one of a number of things that I can think about if I want to. I can then look at whatever is causing me grief and see it with a greater sense of perspective. Even just a bit of distance can take me from feeling overwhelmed to feeling at ease.
I find it helpful to remind myself that I’ve made it through every stressful moment of my life and then use life hacks to make the present moment less stressful. This could involve, among a number of things, remembering a joyful occasion, thinking of something that makes me laugh, using loving-kindness to wish happiness on someone else, controlling my breathing, relaxing my body, or doing a physical activity that I enjoy. Giving myself some distance from my stressful thoughts allows me to go back to them and work through them more effectively than trying to stop them outright. I’ve found that gives me a much better chance of actually being able to quiet my mind and achieve inner peace instead of just temporarily burying the stress by distracting myself with other thoughts. I hope this gives you a useful tool for when you feel overwhelmed by your thoughts. Please let me know if it helps you and, as always, I’ll keep sharing stuff that helps me as I come across it.