“Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.”- Shakti Gawain
I have a problem. Well I have many problems, but today I’m talking about the problem that my brain never shuts off. I think too much about everything. I over analyze every conversation after its already over. I will even have problems sleeping at night because I can’t stop thinking about things, especially those that I can do nothing about. That particular problem seems to be somewhat genetic, as my father suffers from the same addiction. The brain either wonders if following the gut was the right path or you suddenly make yourself feel guilty for not listening to that inner voice. How many times have you tried so hard to think of something during the day and have it suddenly remembered at 3 o’clock in the morning? Then your brain decides “Well since your up, let’s think about this?” A lot of times for me is a sudden revelation about my dissertation that I think on and expand and then get up to write it on a piece of paper. The next morning when I move to add it to my dissertation notes with excitement only to find out I had already thought of that at another time…
Humans are problem solvers. It’s part of what separates us from the other primates (except Chimpanzees as they are also problem-solvers). We believe that if we think about it hard enough, we can solve it and everything will be ok, even if everything is just fine as it is. If we can’t solve the supposed problem, we beat ourselves up for being so stupid and inept. I do this constantly. Why did I say that during this conversation that was so stupid, I should have said this. Why didn’t I think of that when it happened? How did I not see this coming? How could he hide all this from me? Why was I so blind? Only hindsight is 20/20. After everything has happened, of course you can piece all the little hints leading up to the foregone conclusion, but what we have to understand is that there’s no way we could have seen all those little hints as it was happening. It’s a hard pill to swallow. We think too much. We need to shut of the brain and listen to our gut every once and a while. Deep down you know and we don’t listen to that feeling and spiral ourselves into self deprecation, stress, dishonesty with ourselves, exhaustion, and a feeling of weakness. We are not weak. We are not inept, we are human and we think too much. Be yourself. What first comes out of your mouth, the actions you chose to take at the time are closer to your true self. Remember that and if you think them to be wrong later, apologize and move on. Do not fret over it. Be yourself. Follow your gut.
I’ll end this short post today with a quote from Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much: “It’s time to wait with our ‘inner guidance.’ It’s always there. We have just covered it over with the compacted concentration with mental masturbation.” Rather to the point I thought.
archaeomommy 