6 Ways To Think Less + Feel More

At times I can be incredibly curious, introspective and analytical. I like to roll ideas and concepts around in my mind to make sense of things.

When something arises in my life that challenges me, I love to know why. To explore it. Dive deep in to it. Think about it.

When I can do this with a sense of lightness and detachment it can be a beautiful process of realisations, epiphanies and profound clarity. I allow the thoughts and feelings I am experience to evolve, change shape and become clearer as I ponder them and give them space.

At other times, this quality causes me some trouble.

 

Thinking Weighs Us Down

Sometimes my mind grabs hold of these thoughts, the stories and emotions around them and grips on tightly. It becomes fixated on why something is happening the way it is. I get stuck in over-thinking.

In decision making, I over think in desperate hope of making the right choice. In problem solving, I seek and search for an answer and my mind rattles endlessly through all of the possibilities.

Life becomes serious. I finding myself frowning and puzzling over deep concepts. I withdraw and mull.

I dive so deep in to a concept that I lose myself in it and end up on a trail of useless thinking.

I have come to realise recently that I give my mind a lot more power that It needs. I depend on it to heavily. I rely upon it’s recycled wisdom.

So, how can we begin to lighten the mental load? How can we take our attention off our thinking and place it more on feeling? 

 

1. Be Light With Your Thoughts

This isn’t about switching our mind off altogether or trying desperately to suppress any thought that arises.Rather, let’s just practice being light with it. Let’s keep our pondering of concepts curious and playful.

We do not have to be our thoughts, instead we can be the observer of them.

We can detach a little from the thinking that is going on. We also don’t have to believe our thoughts. We must keep in mind that we can pick and choose which ones we want to believe based on how they feel to us.

 

2. Embrace, Rather Than Resist

Our mind loves to label something as bad or wrong and then go about trying to fix it. We create problems that don’t even exists. All of our over thinking actually makes something worse.

So, instead let’s just embrace whatever is going on.

We do not need to label it as a positive or negative experience, let’s just let it be. When we do this, we soften. The weight we carry of trying to sort it all out melts away.

When there is nothing to fight with and we feel at ease with what is happening, our energy naturally shifts in to a lighter, more joyful space.

 

3. Be Aware of When Your Thoughts Take You Away From Now

Notice when your mind has taken you down the garden path to god knows where. Notice when you are lost in daydream land, rather than being present. Here. Awake.

What do we need to think about really anyway? Surely if we are faced with a challenge, problem or issue we just address it then and there based on what we feel is right at the time.

Do we need to spend days, weeks or sometimes months mulling over it and attempting to build clarity from a pile of confusion?

I am learning to practice this.

 

4. Put The Heart Back In Charge 

Thinking keeps us stuck in our mind and prevents us from dropping in to the one precious space we need to be in order to gain the clarity we seek – our heart.

Sure our mind is valuable. But let’s choose to make it the servant of my heart rather than the captain of the whole ship.

As we make this decision, we take our attention off our rattling minds and place them deeply, and powerfully on the place that matters. Our heart. And we allow that gentle, loving wisdom to guide us moment by moment on the precious experience of life.

 

5. Let Your Feelings Be Your Guide 

When we live from our heart, we let our inner feelings, sensations and knowings be our guide. We don’t need to think about things, we just to feel about them.

When we want to make a decision or take a new step, we feel in to it. We explore what happens in our body around it. We notice how it makes us feel. We drop in to our body and let our heart’s wisdom speak to us through our feelings.

Not sure how to do that? Check out my Live a Heart Driven Life Workshop where you will learn  the powerful process of connecting your heart space, hearing it’s wisdom and getting clear on the steps you can take to live what you love. Grab your copy here.

 

6. Be With Life And All It Contains

Let’s just be here with life. To be in life. Not to be in our head or some imagined past or future space. I want to live in the present, not in memories. I want to live in my feelings, not my thoughts.

If experiences arise, let’s experience them, rather than thinking them.

Let’s be in them, rather than in our head about them. Immerse yourself fully in whatever you are doing, creating or experiencing in that moment. Awaken all of your senses and feel it wholly and fully.

 

Can you relate to the experience of being an over-thinker? Share your experiences with me in the comments below

With love,

Connie x