How to Pay Attention to Your Thoughts Without Going Crazy

How to Pay Attention to Your Thoughts Without Going Crazy

I hate to be the one to dash your hopes of becoming a brilliant, highly original thinker, but the thoughts currently bouncing around inside your head aren’t vastly different from the thoughts in the heads of the other eight billion people wandering our lonely little planet.

Even worse, ninety-nine percent of the thoughts you do have aren't even new. They are being replayed on an hourly, daily loop, like a bad disco song lingering in your brain days after you heard it at a tacky wedding.

You are way more than the random, looping thoughts in your head. In Michael A. Singer’s renowned book, The Untethered Soul, he drops an absolute hammer of truth right at the beginning: "There is nothing more important to true spiritual growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind–you are the one who hears it."

To actually realize this, we have to start paying close attention to the tracks playing on the mind's radio station. Here is what to listen for.

The "I Suck" Soundtrack

Most of the time, the mind defaults to the negative playlist. It is a master at finding the gap between where you are and where it thinks you should be.

Listen closely, and you'll hear the familiar chorus of Not Enough. It’s the voice whispering, I’m not there yet. I’m not successful. I’m not smart enough, pretty enough, rich enough, or talented enough. It loves to argue with time, constantly complaining that you are too old, too young, or running out of time.

When the mind gets truly exhausted, it switches from insecurity to pure, rebellious anger. And then, there is the most seductive trap on the negative playlist: the Someday ballad. This is the thought that promises, I’ll be happy when… When I get this job, when I find this person––then I’ll finally be okay. It's a lie designed to keep you constantly chasing the horizon.

The "Everything is Awesome" Track

You might think the goal of the spiritual path is to just flip the dial over to the positive station. We all love positive thoughts. They absolutely feel better, and they make the human experience much more enjoyable.

But here is the massive spiritual catch: you are not those thoughts either.

Positive thoughts are still just weather passing through the sky of your awareness. If you attach your entire identity to being the person who only thinks "good, positive" thoughts, you will eventually crash when the bad disco song inevitably cycles back on. You are not the positive thoughts; you are the silent, spacious awareness observing them.

The Mind's Favorite Party Tricks

Beyond just positive and negative, the mind employs a whole arsenal of deeply ingrained patterns and cognitive illusions. Once you start paying attention, you'll catch your mind doing these party tricks constantly:

• The Mind Reader: Entirely convinced that he thinks I'm a loser or she hates me, with absolutely zero evidence.

• The Fortune Teller: Constantly predicting the future (I'll fail that exam, I won't get that job).

• The Catastrophizer: The mind loves drama. One unexpected bill arrives, and suddenly the mind insists you’ll be out on the street.

• Discounting the Positives: Writing off your hard-earned successes as a fluke, while simultaneously overgeneralizing every single mistake (This always happens to me, I fail at everything).

• Should and Blame: The mind is terrified of simply being with what is. So, it insists, I should get a raise, she should act differently. If reality doesn't match the "should," the mind immediately looks for a scapegoat.

Pulling Off the Headphones

The sooner you realize that you are not these party tricks, these judgments, or these looping disco songs, the better. You’re the observer of it all.

Thoughts come and go constantly. The only way to gain freedom and distance from them is to relentlessly pay attention to them. Waking up requires pulling the headphones off and looking at the radio. Grab a journal and make this concrete: Write down the top three negative thoughts you catch yourself looping. Write down your top three positive thoughts. Write down your most common thought patterns. Seeing your thoughts written out in ink on a piece of paper proves they are just thoughts.

If you are ready to wedge some space between your loud, chaotic thoughts and the quiet, observing real you, I invite you to start a free trial of the Know Thyself course. It provides the exact, actionable framework you need to step back from the mental noise and firmly anchor into the unshakeable peace of your true nature.