As someone with an incredibly overactive mind, and a brain that rarely switches off, this was a vital lesson for me.
Your thoughts are not always truthful.
Thoughts are NOT facts.
Just because you can think it, doesn't make it true.
My brain is just a bundle of laughs.
I overthink practically everything.
I can catastrophise at the drop of a hat.
I can pin the blame for almost anything on myself.
Because a thought, usually self-doubt, popped into my head, it felt real. It felt it would happen. I was predicting my future, and it was a horrible feeling. My head just felt full of fear and doubt.
I let him down.
I didn't support him enough.
He was alone when he died. He was scared. He'll never forgive me.
I could have done more.
I should have done more.
I should have called the ambulance sooner.
I should have made him go to those clinic appointments.
I'm a bad person.
His death was my punishment for being a terrible person.
I'll never be happy again.
And the list goes on. My mind was tortured by a series of "coulda, woulda, shoulda" done this, that and the other. It was slowly breaking me.
I wasn't able to acknowledge that a thought was not a fact. It was a thought that I enabled to spiral out of control in my little anxious mind.
I can't say I'm perfect at it now, and have it under control, but I can say I'm aware of it. I'm aware of my brain's ability to do this and I'm also aware I have the ability to talk back.
Yes, I talk back to my brain.
I tell it that it's not all bad.
It tells me he died because I didn't get to the hospital on time. I tell my brain that he died because he was terminally ill. It wasn't me.
It talks, it backchats, and I try not to listen to its gloom. Hit that dark cloud with a ray of sunshine. Boom! Take that, stormy cloud of self doubt.
One step at a time, we've got this.