A friend of mine was merrily chatting to me about a positive opportunity in her life when she suddenly changed tack and said, ‘but looking for things to worry about, like our brain likes to do…’ She made me laugh because that’s exactly what our brains are inclined to do!
Like emotions, many thoughts seem to be geared more to survival than optimising situations. This means our thinking is not always as trustworthy, and certainly not as rational, as we’d like to think it was. Human thinking capability is something quite remarkable in terms of what it can logically work out and achieve at best, so it’s no surprise we prize it and overlook its flaws. These flaws, we sometimes carry as troublesome burdens, often with little awareness of them, and they can cause us a lot of unnecessary bother and/or negative impact.
So here are just a handful of ‘thinking burdens’ that we can carry with us:
Negativity bias I have mentioned our thinking’s negativity bias many times before. It’s best illustrated by a situation where we have received a barrage of praise and one criticism. What do we find ourselves dwelling on later? Yes: the one criticism. To notice ‘loudly’ where the things that poison us are, and not so much where the beautiful flowers are, is great for survival but it’s not so good for our self-worth.
Never enough Another thing our brain seems to torture us with is its struggle to be satisfied. Our thinking often tells us we need ‘more’. More things, more holidays, more happiness, more fulfilment. I feel this is driven by a number of things: we are deafeningly ‘sold’ the idea that getting ‘more’ will make us happy (and the clear evidence that it doesn’t, doesn’t seem to stop us), social media bombards us with other people’s lives and achievements that look dazzling, so we perceive others are perpetually having a better time than us (and we can’t help but think, if we strive hard enough, we will too) and our ramped up ‘reward system’ (dopamine buzz) keeps us in a state of agitatedly searching for more! Add in our brain’s negativity bias, and we have a cocktail of dissatisfaction! Rarely are we encouraged to think and feel – we are, and have – more than enough!
What others think of us A common unsettling thought is that of needing to impress others and/or worrying about what they think of us. In youth we might put a lot of thinking energy into this and it can actually dominate our interactions. (It usually improves with age, but still might linger a little.) These self-conscious thoughts are noisier inside our heads than anyone else’s, of course. Nobody is thinking about ‘us’ as much as we are. (Worse still, some people will leave a social situation and spend time ruminating upon how someone reacted or what something someone said might have meant; torturing themselves with hidden meaning that was almost certainly not there.)
If we can free ourselves of this concern and any need to control how we present ourselves and the resulting guardedness, we become more open, authentic and therefore more deeply connecting. We will also be able to focus more easily on the other person too, of course! How much others accepted us was a matter of life and death when our belonging to a tribe was somewhat crucial for our survival. It’s certainly not quite as essential for survival now.
The need to be right Another thinking pattern that we can become hooked upon, is the need to be right. How often have we witnessed online arguments that don’t seem to be about listening or learning but just about point scoring? The level of some people’s affront when they feel nobody is hearing how ‘right’ they are is surely a net negative for them. Besides, nobody really listens to the person who is ‘right’ in heated, egoic arguments. I remember in youth believing it was essential that the/my truth was heard, despite the reality that it was likely to have very little impact, other than a detrimental one – on me (for the emotional effort it took) and on those I was probably over-desperately trying to convince!
I suspect this thought pattern is born of belonging to a society that promotes individualism. Our opinions can become so much part of our identity, we start to put the need to be right over our need to preserve the relationship with the person we are ‘arguing’ with.
Subjective judgements Making subjective judgements about others can often be about our need to consider ourselves better than others – although we’re unlikely to to admit this openly! Our negative judgements are not always completely conscious but they can have a detrimental effect on our willingness to connect. (I am making the assumption open, authentic, connection with others is a positive!) The need to consider ourselves better than others is probably also caused by our individualistic, egoic ideas of success: where we need to believe our choices are definitely better than other people’s! Most of us don’t like to admit we judge others, but look out for it!
Catastrophising When we are stressed, tired and/or overwhelmed we sometimes enter a state of catastophising: imagining that everything that could go wrong, will go wrong. When anxious, we can start to see ‘threat’ where this is none as our anxiety can drive us to search out (almost abstract) things to worry about. Anxiety evolved to put us on edge/high alert so we could narrow our focus to any possible dangers that might arrive. We’re still wired this way, even though we far more rarely encounter situations where we are in true risk of harm.
Compulsions And of course, the other thoughts that can trouble us are compulsive thoughts: the (usually unconscious) thoughts that tell us we do want another biscuit even though we’ve already eaten half the tin or we will just check our phone….again! These thoughts can lead us into all kinds of addictive behaviours… eating too much, excessive shopping, being hooked our screens, scratch cards, alcohol etc.
So what do we do about these less-than-desirable ways of thinking?
As is nearly always the case, much of the answer lies in awareness. Awareness of our negativity bias, our dopamine driven search for ‘rewards’, realising we’re consumed with a need to impress etc. can help us stop listening to and challenge these unhelpful thoughts. Placing a spotlight on our thoughts can release us from such thinking. When we become aware of a thought, we can ask question like:
- Is this thought based on something concrete and in front of me or is it evaluative?
- Right now, is this thought helpful?
- Can I act positively on this thought so I do something beneficial? (If not, it’s probably unhelpful.)
- Am I able to let this thought go or am I determined to hold onto it?
- What would thinking the opposite of this thought be and could I accept that as just as likely?
- If I shared this thought with someone else, what would they think of it?
Further still, mindfulness practice and meditation can make these thoughts quieter. A well-practised meditator can separate themselves enough from their thoughts to give them a more detached, and therefore, objective and less self-focused perspective.