Tip number one : Schedule time to think

Last week I shared with you about my long journey suffering from anxiety. I described anxiety in two ways: As the tiger in the room that no one else can see and as the childish annoying sister I will have to deal with the rest of my life. I also said, that even though I own my own tiger ( not by personal choice ), I have learned to domesticate it, and usually, it stays right next to me instead of in front of me.

When I have too much in my head I get overwhelmed and I over think. Trying to escape from my thoughts has not worked very well, so what I find really helpful is to “schedule my thinking time “. We schedule many things during the day that we have to take care of such as, running errands, eat, work out, ect, but we rarely schedule time for our minds to think, analyze, and resolve some of our thoughts that ruminate all day. Instead, we push it away. I mean who wants to deal with the uncomfortable feelings that thinking (specially negative thinking) brings.

Most mornings, I go for a walk and mindfully try to bring one by one all my ruminating thoughts to my attention. I listen to them and analyze them as much as possible. I also read my body, my reactions to the thought, and the emotion that it generates. Then I go home and continue with my day. The rest of the day, when my ruminating thoughts try to get my attention, I gently push them away and let them know that I will give them time tomorrow during my walk.

With lots of practice, my mind has learned that thinking is a scheduled activity for my morning walks and it works… most of the time.

I truly believe that if we deny our mind from doing something that it wants to do, it will start obsessing and wanting to do it more. For example, try not to think of a blue elephant. See? I know that is the first thing that came to you mind when I told you to not do it. Give your mind its time to think and explore and show her who is in control . Start taming your tiger 🙂