Now Let's Get a Handle on That Inner Crazy

In my last two blog entries, I talked about things in our speech that we can pay attention to in an effort to change our mindsets.  Now we’re switching gears and will be talking about our thoughts.  We as humans have the blessing and curse of conscious thought – we can solve problems, generate ideas, analyze, and create actions plans with our thoughts.  We can also drive ourselves bat shit crazy with them! 

I am sure that all of us have an incident from our past where we let our train of thought completely derail and we escalated to a level of insanity from it.  In my past I have been certain that someone was in a car accident, arrested, having an orgy, you name it… I have a very vivid imagination which helped me fill in a blank with an absolutely unfounded, horrid, worst case scenario that absolutely didn’t happen.  I have dished out some of this crazy, and have also been on the receiving end of crazy, as recently as this week!  

In this entry I will share a strategy to help tame the mental beast. And you might not believe it, but it's simple. Probably the most simple thing I will dish out in the blog series.  It will make you stress less, help your relationships, and keep you off the crazy train.

This is seriously my favorite :)

 

Let's start the intervention!   When was the last time you jumped to a conclusion, and then later found out you were wrong?  I’ll let you marinate on that for a second.  This is important. 

Got it?  It’s very possible that this happened recently to you, as it is a very natural tendency for us to interpret a situation based on our own personal experiences.  We all think that we are exceptionally smart and are better than Dr. Phil as interpreting situations whether they involve body language, use of emoticons in text messages, or lack of communication from someone. 

Come on Dr. Phil, you know it's not polite to point.

 

A great example of this is mentioned in Stephen Covey’s ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.  He talks about being on a subway, and a man and his two children board.  The man sits down and the children run around yelling, knocking things over, and are very disruptive.  Stephen looks at the man and says 'Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn't control them a little more?'  The man looks up at Stephen and says 'Oh, you're right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don't know what to think, and I guess they don't know how to handle it either.'    Can you imagine?  It is SO easy to assume that he was just an inattentive father, it’s easy to assume the person who cut you off in traffic is just a prick, or that someone not inviting you to a party they’re throwing means they are angry with you.  The list can go on and on. 

So instead of inventing a story to help draw a conclusion, what to do you? 

ASK.

It’s that simple.  ASK.  Doesn’t that sound simple?  I started really challenging myself to do this a few weeks ago and let me tell you – it makes things so simple!   You no longer need to expend so much energy imaging horrible scenarios, worrying, inventing situations that have no basis on reality – you just ask.  You don't sit there and tell yourself a 'story' that whatever is going on is about you.  (He's mad at me. She doesn't care about me anymore.  I must have done something wrong...) Newsflash - it's almost NEVER about you, but you don't know if you don't ASK.

A friend is having a birthday party and you didn’t get an invite yet, so ask them about it.  A co-worker seems irritated, instead of assuming you did something wrong, you ask them if they’re okay or want to talk.  You’re in a new relationship and you hadn’t heard from the person yet today – instead of assuming they lost interest, ask them how their day is going. Just ask!  It’s seriously that easy. 

I had a good friend in high school.  We lost touch for a few years after graduation, but then re-connected.  We were catching up and I said I wondered why we lost touch for so long.  He then told me that when I was back in my hometown for graduation of a younger friend, he was there and I allegedly looked at him and gave him a dirty look.  For a few years he was convinced that I didn't like him and didn't want to talk to him because of the 'look'.  I don't remember seeing him there, and for all I know I just had resting bitch face because it was so hot in there.  All he had to do was ask.

We all have times that we turn into a modern day Ernest Hemingway and craft these elaborate, yet completely off base stories in our head to fill in blanks in our lives, when all we need to do is ask a question.  Isn't that amazing?  It's seriously the shit to start doing this.  You may even start to laugh at yourself when you begin falling down the rabbit hole of story telling and initially thinking it's truth, until you ask yourself - can I prove this to be right?  Can I even know if this is accurate?  Probably not.  Let Jodi Picoult craft the stories, you just ask the question and enjoy your new found inner peace.