Unlock Mental Peace with This 1 Question: A Super Simple Guide to Calming Overactive Thoughts
The Sunday Best Round Up #15
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Welcome and Hello to you Happy Substacker,
Gonna start off today with a little from the world of mindfulness and general âthinking-nessâ.
We all have unhelpful commentaries in our head at any given time, on any given day.
That remark you made about your friendâs hairâŚ
The 3 things you need to get from the shop for dinnerâŚ
Which shade of grey paint to choose for the bathroom wallâŚ
Thoughts.
Thoughts.
ThoughtsâŚ
And they go on and on and on untilâŚ
Well until⌠pretty much death really. đ
And thatâs all fine and good.
(Except maybe the death bit which all seems just a bit final and a tad unnecessary).
Because of course you gotta think and reflect on stuff, and definitely remember the yummy eats you need for dinner unless you want divorce, child mutiny, death stares from your dog to go hungry.
âHowever after a While of Mulling Things Over it Becomes Pretty Pointless to Continue.â
It takes up unnecessary bandwidth.
Slows you mentally and stops your mind doing something nicer, more fun, or creative.
Not a scenario of goodliness at all.
However fear not my enchanted reader, fear notâŚ
There is an antidote to this particularly obnoxious little poison called over thinking.
Step forward Sir Dan of Harris and his excellent 10% Happier Book.
(TDLR: itâs THE BEST BOOK on getting started with meditation and mindfulness if youâve been utterly hopeless at it before, like me đ)
Dan says that at times of such over-thinking you should ask yourself one simple question about your thinking:
When you ask yourself this and get the inevitable answer:
âNo, it bloominâ well isnât you silly, silly personâ
Itâs the perfect cue to STOP thinking about it.
To give yourself permission to consciously tune out.
(A bit like turning off the TV button to stop watching a show.)
Does it work in real life?
Well of course it does my mosting doubting of Thomasâ.
Par example:
Last weekend I was driving to the library with my daughter and came to a busy roundabout with cars backed up in a long line.
Being *smart* I decided to take some smaller back roads to get there quicker.
I got a bit lost and ended up being just as slow (if not slower) than if Iâd stayed on the original route. đ
As I sat in the new traffic queue I began to mentally play the 2 different routes in my head.
The one I was on⌠and the one I had swapped from.
Literally thinking about them road by road, imagined traffic line by imagine traffic line. To work out which would have been quicker.
Yep my brain went THERE!
Comparing and contrasting 2 road journeys of about 1 mile in distance.
Talk about entirely wasting my mental space with futile work.
âUnenlightened Me (i.e. any time in the past 50 years prior to reading Dan Harrisâ book) would have Played this Silly Little Mental Game for the Next 30 Minutes. â
With no real point or advantage whatsoever, other than to keep thinking and thinking and thinking - running my brain like the proverbial hamster on a wheel.
So I asked myself the golden question âIs This Useful?â
The answer was a big fat NO!
âSo I STOPPED; Concentrated on Slower Nasal Breathing and Instantly Felt Better.â
Yay.
Little mindful hack for the win.
I heartily recommend asking yourself âIs This Useful?â next time you get stuck in some useless thinking, as it may just release your brain from that little hamster wheel of ultimate pointlessness, and gift you some nice mental R and R.
(or maybe even RânâB if a little Whitney or Stevie Wonder is your thang!)
Good luck đ§ââď¸đ§ââď¸đđ
Article I Wrote on Substack This Week:
â25 Key Lessons on Health, Wellness, Writing, and Building a Community on Substackâ - as I recently hit 100 subscribers Iâm doing 4 x 25 âbest of Substack postsâ with this being volume 1
A Video Note I Shared on Substack This Week:
Article Iâm Writing for Next Weekâs Substack:
My new piece comes out September 18th and itâs called â25 MORE Things I've Learned on Substackâ and it contains 25 MORE things Iâve learned on Substack so far in the realms of health, wellness, writing and publishing (following last weekâs night above).
5 Health and Wellness Articles I Enjoyed on Substack This Week:
âAvoid the Trap of False Urgencyâ A great reminder from
of the importance of taking mini breaks when we have too much to do and not enough time. Imagine be busy huh?đâ7 Wonderful Thich Nhat Hahn Quotes That Will Spark Joyâ Superb list of quotes shared by
- all very relevant to daily life and being a little more mindful and happier. A super nutritious little snack of yummy Mindfulness.âDitch the trends âĄď¸ discover the self-care that lights you upâ A simple and effective way to self care without buying $200 Wild Yak Milk Candles, heading on 7 Week Turtle Retreats, or living in a Deep Mediterranean Cave. Small things you can do daily from
âHow to âChoose Yourselfâ This super short yet super insightful article by
looks at the inherent human contradiction of independence Vs the need for connection.âHow I Stopped Worrying and Started Restingâ This writing really resonated with me as it itâs about the struggles of always being on the go, never resting or recovering.
shares some great lessons for all if us who overstretch ourselves.
I hope you enjoyed todayâs little compendium. If you did, please do me a favour and re-stack it, or add a comment below. Iâd REALLY REALLY appreciate it.
To Lazy Sunday Afternoons,
JFT Beach
PS Thanks to the following for⌠well⌠following!
Yep this week the following lovely people have started following me on Substack
thank you
I can tell you right now that over thinking the color GREY for a bathroom is futile. Bathrooms are tiny rooms that are begging for attention beyond đŠ my and peeing and cleaning up the yucks of life. They want COLOR! Any color. Bold color. Bright color! My most favorite bathroom I ever visited was wallpapered in matchbooks!
Now thatâs a whole different kind of thinking. The creative kind of thinking of what you could do to make a bathroom less đŠy!
I love your stories. Is this useful? Grey in a bathroom is not useful. In my mind.
After visiting that powder room, I gathered postcards from all my travels, intent on one day, when I had my own bathroom, to wallpaper it in my adventures. First husband nixed that idea and after 10 years I gave up the dream. Thatâs one of the very few regrets I have in my life.
Now taking an alternate 1-mile route due to traffic? Thatâs not a regret. Comparing those routes in the mental chatter? As you so amazingly point out, you can shift that from regret to creativity by thinking of all the things you got to experience on the alternate route that you wouldnât have seen on the original route, and then all of a sudden you are noticing the deer in the woods or the child on the sidewalk stomping in puddles.
Thank you JFT Beach. Sunday morning coffee is once again coupled with mindfulness smiles and joys that you started with your pixie dust stories.
Is this useful? Probably not đ this is my reality way too much. I need to ask this question a lot more frequently. Thank you for the article!