Feb 24 / Doug Baxter

Taming the Mind: How to Stop Overthinking and Take Control

Have you ever been lying in bed, and your mind just keeps going and going? You’re thinking, Dang, I wish I could get my mind to shut up. Or maybe you’ve felt anxious or stressed and thought, Hey mind, just stop!

This is you becoming aware of your own mind.As your mind goes, so goes your day—this is a self-evident truth. If you feel stressed, you have a difficult day. If you feel happy, your day is great.

Your mind dictates how your day unfolds; you don’t get to decide.Most of the time, we just go about our lives, letting the mind do its thing. It gets happy, mad, stressed, excited, worried—it creates your experience of the day. But it rarely asks you what you want.

When we ask our mind to stop thinking, we are observing it from the outside. We have a mind, but we are not our mind.

If you can step back and see your mind, you gain a greater ability to manage it—and in turn, manage your day. This is where meditation and mindfulness become so useful.

These practices help you step off the mental treadmill, pause, and recognize your own state.

From this place of awareness, you gain control over your mind rather than letting it control you.It’s not complicated.

Just take a few slow breaths.

Let yourself take in what is, rather than being carried away by the stories your mind is running with.
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