I am sitting here on my teal blue adirondack chair staring out at the lake. The irony is that the song coming through my earbuds is The Climb by Miley Cyrus. You see, I marched on Washington, D.C. for March for Our Lives. The march had Miley Cyrus perform the song “The Climb” to the marchers. This brings me to my present situation that I am experiencing today. I just started to watch the Sentencing trial for the Parkland Shooter. They are on lunch break and I decided to write my blog during this courtroom break. I already had planned the topic of this weeks blog and podcast last week. Sitting outside in the beautiful Florida climate I am just staring into space. Playing over and over the victim impact statements that I just listened to. Their voices over and over, hearing their pain and suffering. I am just staring at my computer waiting for the words to come out of my fingers to the keyboard. I am paralyzed in my head reliving that day of the massacre knowing what it has done to my town, family and friends ,but most of all the families of the victims and the surviving victims. I knew that if I didn’t stop this ruminating thought process my fingers would never move across my keyboard. I needed to “Get out of My Head.”
My intentions were not to start my blog this way but I realized it was the perfect example of needing to “Get out of Your Head.” There is not one person that has not experienced an obsessive thought. The kind that keeps replaying inside your head. Have you ever practiced a conversation that needed to be had with another person, over and over and over inside your mind? Obsessing and repeating ruminating thoughts to the point that it is hard to focus on anything else? Memories and tragic life experiences can replay in our minds like a horror movie that keeps haunting us. Maybe, you replay a bad breakup in your mind and how you could have handled it differently to the point that it takes up the majority of your daily thought process? It is completely normal to replay thoughts, trauma, hard times, conversations and life experiences in our brains over and over again.
Here lies the issue and how obsessive thoughts can lead to overt anxiety, depression, anger, incompetence, unfinished tasks, isolation, detaching from friends and family. Getting in your head beyond a healthy amount can create a very dysfunctional lifestyle. What can you do if you find that your obsessive thought process is affecting your quality of life and interactions with others? Take some time out to evaluate yourself and how you are detaching from your life for unhealthy amounts of time. Our brains will always go there but it’s how we cope and stop the thought process. Our internal strength takes over and we move forward.
Thought Stoppers are a great tool to utilize when you’re finding yourself repeating thoughts over and over again. My Thought Stopper is to think of a beautiful place that I have visited before. I don’t just think about it, I actually take myself there through Visualization of the sights, sounds and smells of the place I have been before. Yes, it is that basic. Identifying, ways to distract your brain by taking it to another place and time can help you to refocus on your daily life and expectations. The goal here is to not let Obtrusive Thoughts overtake your daily functioning. This does not mean that you shouldn’t process issues or thoughts but it does mean that you should not spend more than an appropriate amount of time in that head space. A common tool that is used when you find yourself struggling is too refocus by picturing a big red stop sign in your minds eye. Yup, it is that simple. The color of red, the shape of the stop sign and the word “stop” printed boldly, sends the message to your brain to change your Thought Process. Get up move around and start a task to distract yourself. Each of you can pick a word or visual that you can incorporate into your routines when that nasty, upsetting, frustrating rewind button inside your head starts. The message is sent for you to your brain to pause and to move on with your daily routines.
I will be real and honest with you, this can take a lot of work and practice to be proficient with these techniques. Just like when you go to the gym, you are repetitive in your exercise routines because that is what it takes to get to your anticipated results. Join me for this weeks episode of my podcast where I will provide you with various ways to help in decreasing Obsessive Thoughts Patterns and ways to cope. It’s simple ,pop in your earbuds and take a listen to the ways that you can create a healthy, flourishing atmosphere inside your head.
POSITIVE THOUGHTS CREATE POSITIVE ENERGY
GO OUT AND EXPLORE ALL OF THE WIDE OPEN SPACES IN YOUR WORLD
CIAO, Mahalo, Aloha and Merci
Ilise
To the victims of the Parkland Shooting, I will always support you and our community. I hope that in some small way your victim impact statements will help others who experience trauma.
To the murderer jail will take care of you.
