How to identify an obsessive thought. That is the reflection of the day. I think of our brains as something that is the most valuable real estate. It is a real estate that occupies all of our thoughts and, at times, for certain reasons. Sometimes, it could be you having a good argument. Let’s pick an argument with your spouse and it was an ugly argument which, by the way, I always say avoid arguments because if you’re speaking and you’re arguing with each other, no one is listening. But let’s say that you got into an argument and the situation got ugly and then, you start obsessing over everything that has happened. Whatever the trigger was that took you there and you take that trigger and then, you start creating this movie that lives in the real estate of your brain and you start filming and you create the plot and you create all the different scenes of the movie and even the end. It’s all an imaginary movie in your mind that does not exist. The outcome you will never know might not be the outcome that you are expecting. We never know what the outcome is going to be. We can predict. We can imagine but we don’t always know what’s going to happen. We might have an idea but there’s always variation of what we’re thinking that actually takes place. So, I think of a thought that triggers that came to my mind. Let’s say, I keep repeating this same thought and I keep determining what the outcome is going to be and how everything is going to turn out then, I identify that thought that triggers as an obsessive thought. Awareness is power. So, the first thing is to be aware of what is happening. That you have an obsessive thought in your mind that you’re dealing with right now then, you decide, “Ok, how am I going to deal with this?” For example, if the thought keeps happening at night, what I do is I meditate. I am big into meditation. I love meditation. It definitely helps tremendously. So, if you are somebody that meditates, awesome. It’s time to meditate. If you don’t meditate, it’s time to start meditating. But if you read a book or if you can go for a walk in your house, if you can just start writing in your journal something different that you’re feelin so you can deviate from that thought. Because this happens to all of us, this happened to me recently with a trigger that I had and I remember coming to the office and I identified the trigger as an obsessive trigger and then, I put my energy into keeping myself very busy because I knew that that day I had an obsessive thought that kept coming up. Ironically, I had a very productive day because I took that energy and I started being focused on projects. I went through my to do list. I went through my journals where I keep all the things that I need to do. I started having meetings. I kept myself very busy and the thought took less weight. The thought took less real estate space in my brain. So, I invite you when you’re obsessing over a thought, then stop being aware that you are doing it and then, take actions of making yourself busy with something that is going to give you results because that thought is not serving you. So let’s reflect, reset and reconnect.
