When your Brain won’t Shut up

I was talking to a friend today and she asked me how I stop my brain when I am obsessing on something. I have a tendency to do that. When I am upset with myself or someone I sit and think and ruminate. When they talk I get angry and honestly it affects me. Sometimes I take things too seriously and I have to choose to not engage.

Choosing not to engage is so difficult to do though. As a woman in the gaming industry there are a lot of times where I have to choose to not engage. When you get to be behind a screen there is an anonymity that comes along with that and filters tend to disappear. I am opinionated. If you have ever read anything I have written you know that. So sometimes stopping myself from responding can be difficult.

When we are dealing with trolls in game who we do not really know it is easier. However, when it is the people we have grown close to us who hurt us it is more difficult. For a long time the anger and the hurt would eat me alive. It did wonders for my mental health (insert sarcasm here).

Recently I was talking to a friend about this and the fact that sometimes you have to choose to let it go (insert Let it go from Frozen running through my head here). She asked me how I was able to teach myself that skill. I had to think about it for a minute because honestly it was a two part process that took place over a very long stretch of time.

Sharing that process with her and writing about it really helped me. I’m still human so I have not perfected the skill of letting go yet and sometimes it can take me a little longer. Some of these skills I have had to learn to use I have talked about here before but never in this sense. For a long time I believed that to forgive someone I had to forget. We all hear that phrase a lot, Forgive and forget. Easier said then done right?

Well years ago I was taught this: Forgiveness is not forgetting, but giving up the right to ever bring it up again. This radically changed my perception of forgiveness. It allowed me to start forgiving people who I had not been able to forgive and had thought I would never be able to forgive. It did not mean I was not hurt but it did take away some of that resentment that was growing in me. However, once again, I’m still Human and the longer I have lived the more I have learned that Forgiveness is a continual process.

So learning to forgive was the first step of my process of being able to let go and move on and get my brain to shut up. However, the second part was the hardest. It was learning that forgiveness is a continual process and how to deal with intrusive thoughts when they again popped into my head.

I was fortunate enough to be taught the concept of mindfulness. Mindfulness is not an easy practice when you first start learning and using it. However, I started to learn how to deal with my intrusive and obsessive thoughts when they would pop up. When these thoughts would come into my head I would acknowledge them and then bring myself back to the present. Some people might see this as simply choosing to push the feelings down. However, it is not.

Here is the big difference. Before I am able to really forgive I have to work through the anger and hurt. I have to decide how it is going to impact me and my relationship with the person who has hurt me. Sometimes the answer is I have to cut the person out of my life or my level of trust with them changes. They are still human too so it is easy for them to “fail” again and hurt me again. However, by forgiving them and actively choosing to continue to engage in the process of forgiveness I keep myself from being bogged down by obsessive thoughts and eventually the bitterness that comes with unforgiveness. And yes, sometimes this means I have to forgive myself as well.

I do stupid things and end up disappointed in myself and at times those thoughts can become just as intrusive. Forgiveness is for ourselves. Sometimes people will not recognize they need your forgiveness and sometimes they will not be able to accept your forgiveness. You will not always get an apology. However, Forgiveness is something we should be practicing. This means we have to deal with the feelings. We have to deal with it and then move on and actively address this.

Because when your Brain cannot learn to shut up the rest of you will begin to suffer.